The Livadiya Palace Could Enter the World Cultural Heritage

An international seminar to define potential objects of world cultural heritage for UNESCO protection was held in the Crimea under the aegis of UNESCO assisted by the Crimean Republic Committee to Protect the Cultural Heritage.

According to Committee Chairman Serhiy Pavlychenko, over 10,000 objects are under state protection in the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, many of which are monuments of global importance; therefore, the problem of preserving the cultural heritage here transcends any narrow national interests. Documents adopted by UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and other international organizations are executed also in the Crimea. The republic’s government pays special attention to popularizing information on world legislation in the sphere of preserving the cultural heritage, on its problems and attainments. In this connection a new magazine, The Historical Heritage of the Crimea, has been founded by the Republican Committee to Protect Cultural Heritage and the Crimean Office of the Ahatanhel Krymsky Oriental Studies Institute at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences. One of the first documents published in the journal was the Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage passed by the Seventeenth UNESCO General Session in Paris on November 16, 1972 and ratified by an October 4, 1988 Order of the Presidium of Ukrainian SSR Supreme Council No. 6673-XI On Ratifying the Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

The seminar ended with comments by UNESCO experts. A discussion was held on defining potential objects for inclusion on the World Heritage List in the Crimea. The issue was the Livadiya Palace Museum. It was portrayed by its director Liudmyla Kovaliova as not only a picturesque nook in the Crimean South Coast, residence of the last Russian tsar, and architectural monument but also a place where a meeting of the heads of the three ally states of the grand coalition of the USSR, US, and Great Britain, took place on February 4-11, 1945, to work out the issues of ending World War II and creating the postwar world order. The director spoke about the history of the palace’s construction, designed by Yalta-based architect N. P. Krasnov, who became an academician of Russian architecture. The seminar participants visited the Livadiya Palace, familiarized themselves with its display, and listened to UNESCO and ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) experts comment on the possibility of placing the palace on the World Heritage List.