MUSEUM OF ONE STREET COULD BE PUSHED OFF ANDRIYIVSKY UZVIZ

It is also true, however, that sometimes explanations still have to be made of why the museum exists. Indeed, there are the National History Museum of Ukraine and City History Museum. By exploring them, one can get a comprehensive picture of the country's and capital's history. So why the Museum of One Street, dealing with just one street in a huge city? Because it is on Andriyivsky uzviz, Kyiv's most authentic street, a place that has been present throughout the centuries of the city's history, remaining an oasis spared by the tidal wave of ideological pollution. Under the Soviets, historical and social processes were traditionally interpreted as resulting from the movement of the masses. With few exceptions, there was no clear understanding of those masses, that they consisted of a multitude of very individual human beings, or that history, by and large, is a sum total of all those individual feelings, aspirations, hopes, and frustrations.

The Museum of One Street strives to illustrate historical process using specific material, without any ideological taboos or prejudice. Individual life stories and particular circumstances perhaps best sums up the museum's credo.

Another thing that attracts so many visitors is the fact that it is the capital's only museum arising from private initiative and retaining this status, while all such museums elsewhere in Kyiv and across Ukraine have been dying out en masse because of aggressive local authorities or an indifferent public.

The Museum of One Street is alive and well, constantly replenishing its stock and conducting extensive educational work. This viability is mostly likely explained by the staff's innate self-reliance and utter dedication. Its survival in modern conditions has become a kind of socioeconomic experiment and Master has been repeating it several years now.

Much has been written about Andriyivsky uzviz, in prose and verse, prints and paintings, yet its history, its spirit, inimitable romantic atmosphere are an inexhaustible source of creative inspiration. They do not fade with time or change. The narrow street's every bend, every building, mound, boulder, and tree is associated with countless stories, legends, and rumors blending over the centuries into the very special myth of Andriyivsky uzviz, and the museum was dedicated to precisely this and afterwards it became the myth's continuation.

Recently One Street has gone through a very trying period. After being transferred to new premises at 2-B Andriyivsky uzviz, a six-month interruption in its exposition, being rejuvenated and expanded, it is again open to visitors, along with an exhibition hall accommodating rotating historical-documentary and art exhibits (thirty in all since the institution's opening in 1996, with Kyiv remaining the leitmotif, portrayed by Ukrainian classics and modern artists).

Unfortunately, the museum had hardly been installed in its new digs when it was threatened with eviction. Podil city district administration decided to establish a district history museum as a «parallel structure» and enterprise subordinated directly to the local housing authority. The news came as a painful blow; One Street seemed to have cloudless prospects. There were friends and regular visitors turning up every weekend, bringing their families. Entries in the visitors' book include affectionate comments and verse. But of course, all of this was lost on the local moguls.

Does this mean that no good deed really can remain unpunished in our country? Or that those currently in power are so weak they have to use the backdoor to enter history?

FROM THE DAY 'S FILES:

In 1988 the Master Literary Club was founded. Its first exhibition, Mikhail Bulgakov's Kyiv, was organized at the writer's home (13 Andriyivsky uzviz). The following year the place accommodated the exposition, Mikhail Bulgakov and The White Guard . Eviction (because the Bulgakov House became a state museum), was accompanied by the search for new premises, finally moving into the wing of a house at 13 Andriyivsky uzviz and showing Gymnasium Veterans (of Kyiv's Gymnasium No. 1). Then eviction anew and again a search for a new roof.

In 1990 the house at 22-B Andriyivsky uzviz, officially allocated for expanding the museum, was put up for sale by the city district authorities with the museum's lease agreement still in effect.

1997-98 witnessed repair of the new location, which was municipal property of the Podil city district authorities, leased by the museum for fifteen years thanks to Leonid Kravchuk's intercession and a series of features on Ukrainian television.

In December 1998 One Street's first standing exposition hall opens.

In July 1999 the museum's was familiarized with a draft resolution of the Podil district administration allocating the museum premises for what is planned as the Museum of Podil, directly under the district housing authority.

In August 1999 cultural figures, scholars, and clergymen addressed letters to Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko and then Deputy Premier Valery Smoliy requesting preservation of the Museum of One Street.

Will there be an answer?