Museum on paper, history in the attic

Last weekend the residents and guests of Kyiv again marked Kyiv Day. Some were celebrating and some were lamenting the lost green areas, the disfigured landscape of the old city, and the library, museum and art studio premises sold out to offices. Some were drinking beer and dancing at the free concert on Independence Square, while others could see new cracks in the St. Andrew’s Church foundation because the Borychiv Tik hills on which it stands have already been set aside as construction sites.

The main question people asked the last weekend was “Where do we go?” In general, the city authorities, various organizations, foundations, and companies held all kinds of events either by force of tradition or for the sake of just one publicity stunt (June 1 is also International Children’s Day) all over Kyiv. Naturally, some of them were really useful and instructive, but there were also ones just intended to help one kill time. For example, “green tourism” of Ukraine was presented at the Pyrohove-based Museum of Folk Architecture and Daily Life of Ukraine; the Cross and Sword historical and patriotic festival at which Ukrainian clubs staged medieval jousts, was held at the Hryshko Botanical Gardens; the Song Field gathered school graduates for the traditional Kyiv Waltz contest. There were also cross-country races, bicycle competitions, and concerts. The Kyiv City Administration alone came up with as many as 20 events.

However, there is the other side of the coin, too. For example, the writer Andrii Kurkov told The Day that he used to like very much visiting the Museum of Kyiv History which now exists essentially on paper only. Its employees are now sitting (just the right word) on the fourth floor of Ukraine House in a small unlit room because in 2003, following the instructions of Viktor Yanukovych, the then prime minister, the city authorities handed over Klovsky Palace, their premises, to the Supreme Court of Ukraine. So now nearly all of the 200,000 exhibits are gathering dust in the attics of the Ukrainian House and in the branches of the Museum of Kyiv History (the museums of Bulgakov, Pushkin, Hrushevsky, and the Cultural Heritage Museum).

Academics has told The Day nostalgically about the opening of the Kyiv History Museum in 1982, when our city was celebrating its 1,500th anniversary. Not to idle away these days and attract at least some kind of attention (a delegation from the Japanese twin city Kyoto visited Kyiv on May 28), they opened the repository, took out 34 pictures by Japanese artists who work in the nangain style (traditional, albeit slightly modernized, Japanese painting), and exhibited them at the Ukrainian House.

“When I was in Japan recently, I met the mayor of Kyoto, and we discussed the program of further cooperation. They have interesting experience, particularly, in the transport infrastructure, civil construction, investments, environmental protection, and culture,” Denis Bass, deputy head of the Kyiv City Administration, said at a meeting with the Japanese representatives.

He might have as well shared the Kyiv authorities’ experience in, say, preservation of culture on the example of the Kyiv History Museum. Or was he too ashamed to do so? This seems to be a rhetorical question. Today, museum employees are promised now and then (perhaps just to keep them at bay?) premises at the Art Arsenal and the future entertainment center on Instytutska St., but these promises have not materialized so far.

Obviously, the staff of many other museums and libraries of Kyiv, the nurseries of genuine culture and spirituality, could tell a similar story. For them, Kyiv Day is not a holiday but yet another occasion to try again and convince the authorities and the public that this situation should no longer remain as it is. For things will soon go so far that residents and guests of Kyiv will have no alternative but to “consume” the art and culture that the Kyiv Administration is offering us. I wish they would at least ban drinking beer on the street or begin imposing fines for smoking in public places.

COMMENTARY

Kateryna ROMANOVA, acting director, Museum of Kyiv History:

“In early April we were told at the Kyiv City Administration’s General Directorate for Culture and Arts that there were very serious problems with the land plot at 3 Instytutska St., where they had promised to build a new museum building by 2012: the area was impounded because the developer had breached the law. So we’d better pin no hopes on this territory and, instead, look for another place for the museum, for example, at the Art Arsenal. But making a combined museum is not the best option. Besides, as far as I know, the situation with this establishment is also rather unclear, so this prospect seems to be even more remote than the year 2012.

“To tell the truth, the Directorate of Culture phoned us last week to say that construction has been resumed at 3 Instytutska St. We are pinning our hopes on this. And it is still unknown whether there will be a separate block with a museum entrance, or we will just be given a few floors at the entertainment center that is being built there.

“After the museum had moved out of Klovsky Palace, all the exhibits were packed into large boxes which are still being kept in the attic of the Ukrainian House. The only positive point is that the museum has continued doing research over the past five years, but there have been no expositions. We do not know in what condition these exhibits are now because it is next to impossible to reach them: the boxes are stacked one on top of another.

“My predecessors and I have appealed to so many officials, including the president, but nothing has changed. We were placed in a situation when museums must earn enough to maintain themselves, but they are not profit-making institutions. For example, in the West museums can even offer free admission, but they are sponsored by businesses and banks because this is beneficial to them.

“In this country everything is different, unfortunately. We are now funded from the city budget, and this year we have been given too little money. We are in debt to the Ukrainian House for the previous years. There is even no lighting in our premises. But do you know what causes the greatest alarm? When people learn what museum I work at, they ask: ‘Where’s that?’”

Oleksandr BRYHINETS, secretary, Standing Commission for Culture and Tourism of the Kyiv City Council, member of the BYuT faction:

“The museum premises seem to be under construction and the developer is, by the way, a private company. Initially, it was decided that there would be the National Art Museum at 3 Instytutska St. Then this place was projected as a hotel and office center that would presumably give 10,000 square meters to the Museum of Kyiv History. If so, we would have Ukraine’s first museum located in a specially designed and constructed building.

“This building could also host expositions devoted to the history of Kyiv and the works of artists related, one way or another, to our city — from nameless Trypillia virtuosic masters of pottery and the icon painter Alipii to 20th-century megaclassics, such as Maria Pryimachenko, Kateryna Bilokur, and Ivan Marchuk. This would be a nice alternative to the new commercial structure which the Kyiv Council unlawfully allowed to build.

“While there is no Museum of Kyiv History, a building on Andriivsky Uzviz has been handed over to another museum, the Museum of Mediterranean History, of which we know almost nothing.

“So the museum building is officially being constructed, but to what extent is this realistic and will it be really completed? I see the following solution to the problem: all premises that can be used as museums, theaters, and galleries should be given not to offices and private owners, who will open stores there, but to cultural institutions, so that at least the center of Ukraine’s capital will be studded as much as possible with places of culture. Office centers and other similar facilities can be located in other parts of the city.

“However, at the moment, there is a Kyiv City Council resolution to build a hotel-and-entertainment center, and only when it is clear that nothing will be built, this will perhaps touch off a new wave of events around the Museum of Kyiv History.”