President signs a decree On Creating a Chronicle of People’s Memory
President Leonid Kuchma has signed a decree On Creating a Chronicle of People’s Memory, reports Interfax Ukraine referring to the Information and Public Relations Office at the Presidential Administration. The decree is aimed on stimulating the search for, regulation, and preservation of the nation’s spiritual and cultural heritage, monuments of Ukrainian history and culture. According to the document, the government is to speed up its work to include objects of Ukraine’s cultural heritage in the List of Global Heritage and publishing and distributing the Code of Cultural and Historical Monuments of Ukraine.
Such a decree was drafted long ago, Academic Secretary of the Ukrainian Society to Preserve Cultural and Historical Monuments Olena TYTOVA is convinced. She told The Day that at present there are about 150,000 such monuments on Ukrainian territory, 7,000 of which are architectural, 20,000 those of town planning, and over 60,000 archeology ones. According to the 2000 law On Preserving the Cultural Heritage, some monuments, exclusive of archeological ones and those of national significance, can be privatized or leased. Unfortunately, though the law envisions mandatory coordinating any reconstruction in such buildings by the owner or holder, this regulation is often violated. There is also the threat of demolition of old buildings, which do not have a statute of historically significant yet but are on a waiting list to get it, being typical examples of architecture reflecting the town-planning situation of a certain historical period. In Ms. Tytova’s opinion, the issue of renewing such architectural ensembles should also be regulated by law. So far there are only recommendations, which results in an uncontrolled barbarous meddling with historically formed structures.
Archeological monuments are also exposed to predatory excavations. In Ms. Tytova’s words, many archeological finds in, say, Olvia had not in fact been found yet, but auction prices for them had already been established. Well-organized illegal diggers, whom Olvia Preserve employees cannot withstand, are doing their job in former Greek settlements.
This quite one-sided policy toward the historical heritage also evokes astonishment from specialists. Instead of keeping up the existing authentic monuments in a decent condition, primarily the construction of new buildings on historical places is financed, even if they are made according to old blueprints. “Clearly, anybody can see the difference between a modest donation to restoration of a nineteenth century tapestry, remaining practically unnoticed by public, and a sensational opening a new pseudo-historical building attracting dozens of journalists. However, destruction of the existing buildings because of lack of financing will lead to a situation when we will have to keep erecting historical plaster casts in places of truly interesting monuments,” she says.
