Priceless Monuments Destroyed by Russia in Ukraine

The Ukrainian-made Antonov AN-225 Mriya airplane entered the Guinness Book of Records as an absolute record holder. The Ukrainian "Mriya" (translated from Ukrainian as "dream") has set 240 world records in speed, altitude and cargo capacity, gaining fame as a phenomenon of world aviation. The design is equivalent to a six-story building: length - 84 m, wingspan - 88.4 m, height - 18.1 m, payload - 250 tons. But on February 27, 2022, Russian troops attacked the Hostomel airport (Kyiv region), where Mriya was stationed, from the air. In an attempt to seize a foothold for a further offensive on Kyiv, the Russian army destroyed the world's largest and most powerful transport aircraft. 

The original flight deck cannot be restored, as well as hundreds of other unique objects that the Russian army destroys without a trace in its war of aggression in Ukraine.

Vasyl Tarnovskyi's house (Chernihiv)

the end of the 19th century

Destroyed on March 11, 2022

Source: Wikipedia

The house in the pseudo-Gothic style appeared on the northeastern outskirts of Chernihiv in the late 19th century and was originally used as a craftsman's classroom of an orphanage.

The building's owner, Vasyl Tarnovskyi Jr., was a descendant of a Cossack elderly family, intellectual, philanthropist and collector of Ukrainian antiquities. Collecting was his passion. Tarnovskyi personally traveled to villages, hamlets, and towns to find and exchange every valuable artifact.

In 1899, Tarnovskyi donated his impressive collection of paintings, portraits, weapons, manuscripts, and old prints to Chernihiv and bequeathed it to be put on display for "public viewing." The house is transformed into the first and only museum of Ukrainian history in the Russian Empire, the Chernihiv Museum of Ukrainian Antiquities.

The unique collection of nearly 10,000 items assembled by Tarnovskyi included artifacts from the prehistoric, grand ducal, and Cossack periods, as well as a large collection of artistic and literary works by the Ukrainian classic Taras Shevchenko: more than 700 individual items, including autographs, diary, photographs, and lifetime editions of his works, as well as about 400 drawings, watercolors, engravings, and paintings.

The exhibits include materials from archaeological excavations of the ancient Rus city of Roden (modern Cherkasy region), funded by Tarnovskyi, priceless documents of the 17th and 18th centuries, cold and firearms, claymores, church artifacts, embroidery, and national clothing, hundreds of portraits of historical figures, engravings, books, including Ivan Fedorov's legendary "Apostle," documents and items belonging to Hetmans Ivan Mazepa, Ivan Skoropadskyi, Semen Paliy, Pavlo Polubotok, Danylo Apostol, and the Rozumovskyi family.

Source: ui.org.ua

After the Bolsheviks came to power, the exhibition was almost destroyed, and some of the priceless exhibits were taken away. The building was used as a library for young people. But on March 11, 2022, the century-old building, which managed to survive two world wars and the Bolshevik Revolution, was destroyed by Russian troops.

The Russians dropped a 500-kilogram high explosive bomb in the courtyard of the building. The walls and interior ceilings of the building were destroyed.

Lysychansk Gymnasium

the end of the 19th century

Destroyed on May 01, 2022

 Source: Wikipedia

In 2017, the city of Lysychansk, Luhansk region, Ukraine, was among the five finalists of the competition, which is supported annually by the King of Belgium's Foundation and received the Belgian Heritage Abroad Award 2017.

150 years ago, European free capital came to the promising Ukrainian lands. In 1889, the Belgian engineer and entrepreneur Ernest Solvay built a soda factory and a settlement for the workers. Belgian architects invited to the site designed a complex of buildings: the administration, the director's house, a hospital, a chapel, a school, and houses for families and separately for unmarried men. One of these buildings would later be used to open a women's gymnasium of the Prosvita Society, which would later be transformed into the Lysychansk Gymnasium.

The three-story stone building is framed by red ceramic bricks. 

During the Ukrainian Revolution in 1917-1921, it was a military hospital, and in 1923 the building regained its status as an educational institution. Since 1977, the Lysychansk Multidisciplinary Gymnasium had been operating here until 2022.

Source: Head of the Luhansk OVA, Serhiy Haidai, Telegram

However, on May 1, 2022, following a targeted shelling by the Russian occupation forces, a fire broke out in the gymnasium completely destroying the historic architectural monument built by the Belgians.

St. George's Wooden Church, Kyiv region

1873

Destroyed on March 7, 2022

Source: Wikipedia, by Ivan Bykov

The one-domed wooden church dedicated to St. George in Zavorychi, Kyiv region, Ukraine, was built in 1873. During the Soviet era, as part of the widespread practice of "dereligionization," services in the church were banned, and the building was transformed into a granary.

Since Ukraine's independence, in 1998-2012, the church has been renovated, with ancient frescoes depicting the Virgin Mary and scenes of the rescue of St. Peter being restored. The building gained the status of an architectural monument and a cultural heritage site.

Source: Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, X

On March 7, 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army destroyed the ancient St. George's Church with artillery. As a result of a direct hit, the church burned down. Eyewitnesses claim that several times they deliberately directed fire at the church, trying to hit its dome.

House of Illia Yuriev, Mariupol

19th century

Damaged on April 13, 2022

Source: mistomariupol.com.ua

Mariupol was actively developing in the second half of the nineteenth century. The central streets were being built up with elite real estate. A reputable and respectable lawyer at the district court, Illia Yuriev, became the owner of a two-story Empire-style residential building on Katerynynska Street (today: 40 Myru Street).

Yuriev was the chairman of the City Council, a member of the county school board, and a trustee of the Metropolitan Ignatius City Primary School. He leased the first floor of his estate to the editorial office of one of the first periodicals of the seaside city, the Mariupol Reference Sheet.

In 1912, instead of the editorial office, the Twentieth Century Cinema began operating on the ground floor of the estate. A few years later, the Bolsheviks nationalized Yuriev's house and set up the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, which was essentially a repressive torture chamber. During the Second World War, the Nazis transformed the lawyer's former estate into a Gestapo facility.

At the time of Ukraine's independence, Yuriev's house became residential again. A coffee shop with its own library appeared on the ground floor, opened by an internally displaced person from Donetsk, a veteran of the war in Donbas unleashed by Russia in 2014.

Source: ui.org.ua

During the Russian army's seizure of Mariupol, the facades, roof, and interiors of Yuriev's old house were damaged.

House of organ and chamber music, Dnipro

Early 20th century

Damaged on March 11, 2022

 Source: domorgan.dp.ua

The House of Organ and Chamber Music is one of the most notable architectural highlights of early 20th-century Dnipro. Built in 1915, the neoclassical building with Baroque elements and five domes and a three-tiered bell tower with a clock was originally a church. The temple was decorated with original stucco moldings, a gilded iconostasis in the Rastrelli style, and artistic painting. At the same time, the building was equipped with steam heating and electric lighting. After seizing power, the Bolsheviks closed St. Nicholas Church, turning it into a pioneer house, and later a sports school and a coal warehouse. Only in the early 80s was it decided to turn the building into an organ hall. This was the beginning of the building's new life as a cultural center and center of European-level organ and classical music in Dnipro. The building was restored, and a 12-ton two-manual mechanical organ with 30 registers and 2074 pipes of various diameters was installed, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The House of Organ and Chamber Music has hosted a huge number of international festivals, competitions, and tours of performers from Europe and worldwide.

Source: kustdnipro.com

On March 11, 2022, as a result of shelling by the Russian army, shell fragments hit the walls and windows of the House of Organ and Chamber Music. This time, the architectural monument of the national importance partially survived.

Transfiguration Cathedral. Odesa

1794

Damaged on July 23, 2023

Source: wikimedia

The Transfiguration Cathedral, a historical monument, is one of the largest Christian churches in Odesa. It is here that Prince and Princess Vorontsov are buried. The church was built in 1794. In 1936, during the Soviet era, the building was looted and dismantled, and in 2005 it was restored.

On the night of July 23, 2023, the Transfiguration Cathedral was destroyed as a result of Russia's attack on Odesa, Ukraine. A hit to the right side of the building destroyed it from the ceiling to the ground floor followed by a fire. The roof over half of the Cathedral was destroyed.

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During the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine, hundreds of unique monuments have been destroyed, damaged and completely lost. Every time reading reports of another "barbaric" crime against world culture, we realize that the loss of unique objects cannot be priced, because there is something that cannot be restored at any cost.