Stories that you confided to us
Lesia Voroniuk: “Cultural values cannot be restored. These things are lost forever”
Lesia Voroniuk, a Ukrainian writer, scriptwriter, cultural curator and founder of the World Vyshyvanka Day, met the beginning of the full-scale invasion in her hometown Chernivtsi. At that time, it was one of the few cities in Ukraine where it was still relatively safe and quiet. Therefore, like many other residents of Chernivtsi, Lesia sheltered and helped those who managed to escape from the war.
From the first days of the full-scale war, Lesia, together with her colleagues and like-minded people, also helped to evacuate collections of cultural heritage items from the occupied and de-occupied territories, or from those near the front line, such as Kyiv region, Zhytomyr region, Chernihiv, Gadyach, Rivne and Kherson. Owners of unique collections of authentic national Ukrainian clothes and traditional outfit were ready to risk their lives in order to preserve these treasures for future generations.
There were cases when people passed over their family heirlooms for safekeeping. One such [traditional] national outfit from Chernihiv was presented at the international competition European Heritage Award/Europa Nostra Award 2022. The World Vyshyvanka Day (Vyshyvanka is a traditional ethnic Ukrainian embroidered shirt/clothes) won the most prestigious European award in the field of cultural heritage in 2022.
All the saved heirlooms/relics will be part of the exhibited collection in the future Museum of Ukrainian Vyshyvanka, which Lesia Voroniuk and her colleagues are creating in Chernivtsi.
I woke up to a telephone call from a colleague, my cameraman Valentyn Grinberg, who told me that shelling began in Kyiv. At that moment, I was in Chernivtsi with my children, as on 1 March we were supposed to kick off the creation of the Museum of Ukrainian Vyshyvanka here. That is, we have been working on this project for some time, and on 1 March, some dismantling work in the premises was supposed to begin. Well, that’s quite a big project. I immediately understood what he meant by saying, “It [shelling] began”.
I woke up my children and my parents. Clearly, no one was sleeping any more. We tried to understand something from the news. We called all our friends asking where they were, and if necessary, offering them to come over here to us, to Chernivtsi. Certainly, having two children, I kept several options or scenarios in my mind. Chernivtsi is very close to the border with Romania, and if the worst kind of attack had happened then, of course, I would be saving and evacuating my children, as many Ukrainian women did in all the corners of Ukraine. Nevertheless, thank God, I didn’t have to do it. Maybe I am just lucky to be born in a place that is pretty safe geographically, compared to other cities. We tried to be helpful from the very beginning. Certainly, like everyone else, we set up some volunteer centres or hubs and then were engaged in purchasing bulletproof vests and ambulances, in arranging supplies of medicines, which were delivered to Chernivtsi from Romania, across the state border.
I remember well one family from Kherson. It was a husband, a wife, a child and a grandmother. They arrived late at night, and we were a little worried, a little hesitant, because they were complete strangers to us. We wondered whether to let them into the flat or not. But a small kid was sleeping in the back seat.
It was clear that these people needed some shelter. And later we realized that it was very good that this family had been able to leave [their home] on time. Many colleagues from Kyiv came over. They kept coming with their whole families. Some of them came with a lot of things, while others took with them almost nothing, as for some reason everyone recommended: do not take anything with you. I think that it was a rather wrong advice, as then those people were in dire need of clothes and food. Some people even left their documents behind and had nothing with them at all. We worked in the following way.
We provided some accommodation where people could stay for some three or four days, so that they could plan further and arrange something, as very soon we realized that if we do not help these people understand what to do next, complete chaos would set in. In that case, everything comes to a halt. That is, someone is not going further, and then the next person cannot come. At the same time, I’d like to say that there were many friends and acquaintances who said, “No, we are definitely not going to leave our cities. I do not want to. I will not leave Kyiv under any circumstances.”
There were even some conflict situations when you try to convince a very dear person whom you love, “Please, come over and wait it out here. I will give you a shelter. I will provide everything. It is very dangerous there.” And this person says, “No, this is my decision.”
On the one hand, you respect this person for his or her position and resilience, and on the other hand, you tremble every time and feel very worried about his or her life. And those stories about the perseverance, about the resilience of Ukrainians, about the fact that those who did not have an urgent need to leave or move out, who did not have children, who did not have elderly parents, these people really stayed as long as possible, remained without weapons, without food supplies, without any supplies in stock. This is the spirit of Ukrainian people, which is difficult to explain to a foreigner, that we are so magnetized to the place or to the land where we were born. In 2021, we started to work on a huge project called the Museum of Ukrainian Vyshyvanka.
It is a museum of relics and technologies, when we tell people about things from old times with the help of modern technologies, as much as possible. For example, we make a “reverse engineering” and re-produce Lesia Ukrainka’s shirt, and our visitor or viewer can see it, while 3D animation or a hologram of Lesia Ukrainka tells them some information about this shirt. That is, it is a rather expensive cultural project. This is a three-storey building in the centre of Chernivtsi, where in fact the idea of this holiday (Vyshyvanka Day) was born. Basically, we were moving forward rather quickly. We had a lot of partners, we had confirmed funding, and already in May 2022, we were supposed to have a full opening of the museum. Clearly, 24 February changed everything. We lost almost all financial opportunities to work on this project. Nevertheless, we have these premises. They remain. We nevertheless still try to move forward, as much as possible. That is, little by little, we are gradually preparing descriptions for the exhibited collections, we keep collecting the outfits, and we are looking for partners who help us fulfil certain tasks. So this idea is also valuable for them.
For example, construction contractors, or certain digital technology contractors. A very valuable fact is that this museum started to receive some things evacuated from the occupied or de-occupied territories.
From the first days of the war, we started helping our fellow collectors to evacuate their collections. Besides that, many people just [gave] us their family heirlooms. There were some cases when a person adamantly refused to leave a very dangerous place until he or she took their collection out of there.
For your understanding, a collection means a lot of items. It can be 10 boxes, it can be 10 bags of large-size clothes, jewellery, towels – everything related to the traditional Ukrainian culture. Each time it had to be done in a completely different way. That is, it is impossible to say that we developed some logistics solution that we followed, and that it saved us. At certain period, some things had to be delivered by Nova Poshta [delivery company], when it turned out suddenly that the delivery company’s branch still worked in some place. Other things were transported by train. Some items were delivered upon agreement with truck drivers or drivers of large buses that evacuated people. For your understanding, under normal conditions, the transportation of a collection is a very time-consuming and complicated procedure, when everything is neatly folded by people wearing white gloves, and an inventory list is made. Sometimes, certain dryness and humidity conditions need to be ensured. Sometimes these things travelled in car trunks next to containers with fuel, with petrol, with some lubricants, but [most importantly] we saved them.
There was one story when a collection was taken downstairs from the collector's apartment, and a few minutes later, fragments [of a missile or rocket] hit there and damaged the housing. If those items had been left there, basically, they would have been damaged too. It was in Kyiv, at Svyatoslav Sylenko’s home. He is a famous collector from a kobza players’ dynasty. We spent several days trying to find some car in order to take the collection from his home and bring it to the post office. I recall it now and realize how much better our situation has become and how bad everything was back then, that even finding a truck or a mini-bus was sometimes an insurmountable task.
And as soon as all those things, which were in large quantities, were taken downstairs, fragments of a rocket hit his apartment. I think that this saved not only his collection, but also him personally.
We experienced lots of difficulties with a collection of another famous collector, Ihor Perevertnyuk. This was a huge collection. For example, we arranged a transport and made an agreement with the post office. We then brought this collection to the post office, and the post office staff said, “That’s it, we are not taking anything more.” The collection was then temporarily kept in some storage or in some garages, belonging to someone’s acquaintances. In some cold and dirty garages. If our French or German colleagues had heard or found out about it, they would be extremely concerned over it. How is this even possible, when one such thing costs hundreds or even thousands of euros? But that was the case. All this could be left to one guard for the night or could even be locked up somewhere, rather loosely. Nevertheless, fortunately, everything we did worked out well. That is, we did not lose anything and we did not lose anyone, which is also important. Everything worked out the way it normally works with volunteers. That is, always through some connections and contacts, some friends and acquaintances. Sometimes it was through some very remote, far-off connections. That is, there were some moments when I knew that some collection was travelling in some car, and I did not know that car driver personally. I knew him only through some distant, far-off acquaintances.
No one ever knew whether it would arrive to its destination or not. People understand the value of these things, people who do this. Yet, speaking in general, it worked out well. We managed to do it. It was a kind of all-out solidarity and collective effort based on trust.
That is, I hardly know any cases when something wasn’t delivered somewhere, when something disappeared somewhere half-way. And although many connections have already been established, and everyone has some proven old partnerships, but there are still a lot of things, and people keep working based on trust, hoping that a person involved just will not be able to do it in any other way. Hoping that they will do their part of the work, logistics, assistance, and communication, by all means. An interesting story to share is how people from Chernihiv passed over not their museum collections, but rather their family heirlooms to us. For example, one old time’s outfit or one shirt that belonged to their grandmother. Soon these things will become part of the museum collection. This was the case of Iryna Solomakha, who preserved the outfit of her grandmother Maryna Mezhukha. And the value of these exhibits is in the fact that they are from the same family. This is a full costume, completely preserved.
These are two important indicators for collectors and for cultural value, when an outfit, a costume is made up not from different, disconnected parts or elements, but, as they say, comes from the same house. And when we have the entire history of its creation: who wore it, where and when it was worn. I think it will be for our future generations – for our children, as an outstanding story showing this war also as the war for values, and showing how Ukrainians saved their lives and their other values.
This year we won a very prestigious European cultural heritage award called the European Heritage Award/Europa Nostra Award. We took there some of those exhibits we saved in order to show them that everything is being destroyed, and culture suffers very deeply, as it is not a priority. It is quite logical that people and their lives must be saved first. And just to ensure this process, a lot of resources, logistics, and money are required for saving things. For example, who would think about saving some belongings when children need to be saved first, or when the tenants of a geriatric boarding house need to be evacuated? But the point is that cultural heritage cannot be restored.
That is, Grygoriy Skovoroda Museum can be rebuilt, and some old time’s shirts (vyshyvankas) can be re-produced. Modern artisans, dressmakers, can produce them in such a way that you won’t be able to tell whether it is a copy or the original, a genuine item. But the loss of the original, authentic items is the biggest problem. It means things are lost forever.
Now we hesitate to talk about the time when we will open the museum, as once again, we are facing a new reality where power outages bring in some adjustments. That is, while we already have certain partners and could do certain work, everything becomes complicated again. Nevertheless, what I feel is that this museum will definitely open its doors. I think that it will probably also be dedicated to our victory. We collect and store all the elaborations and know-how that we have, and those people who work on every bit of the project, keep working.
That is, although people have moved geographically, all of them remain an integral backbone, a nucleus. And even more so, I think that the work on the museum project keeps many people somewhat motivated or self-organized. That is, for example, a person knows that he or she needs to make 20 descriptions of museum exhibits, that they have a goal, a task for the week. That is why it is a very important consolidating factor now, which prevents artists, cultural curators, or researchers from losing their heart, while not many things are happening in the area of culture now for obvious reasons. But at the same time, a month ago we, for instance, resumed our research expeditions. We travel to villages and small towns and collect traditional Ukrainian embroidery items with trident patterns, and with yellow and blue ornaments. This is the needlework, the embroidered items dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. It is from 1920s-1940s of the 20th century. In addition, we plan to put the album to order as well.
Part of our research will also become a part of the digital museum. We find resources and possibilities to continue our work, we try our best to postpone it as little as possible, or avoid thinking that we should wait for some better times, as we do not know when the war will end. We do not know in what condition we are going to get out of it. We don’t know if we will stay physically alive or not. For that reason, in no case should we waste our time. We should make the most of our every day in the format that is possible now.
From the very beginning, the Museum of Vyshyvanka aimed to collect all the best things associated with embroidered shirts, all the best materials about the diversity of embroidered shirts, about their regional features – this is the first layer. And the second layer is the history of people, the history of our country, when vyshyvanka was a symbol of resilience and perseverance, when the ethnic embroidered shirt was a symbol of struggle.
For example, in one room you can see exhibitions about Vyshyvanka of Podillia region, Ternopil, Luhansk, Poltava and Kherson regions. In another room, you can see the story of Olha Ilkiv, a prisoner who was in exile for 22 years and embroidered her own shirt with a needle made from a fish bone. That is, she made a needle out of a fish bone. She unknit some clothes she had been given, and embroidered her own shirt. And another story tells us how, apart from medicines or other necessities, these days military men ask to pass over some embroidered shirts to them. One might wonder why they need an embroidered shirt somewhere in a trench. It is because our military believe that this is a sort of spiritual armour, that it is their protection, and something from home that is dear to them.
I think that if we tell our future generations about our culture and history in this way, we will finally form a generation of Ukrainians who will have no scruple about their history, language and culture.
And then we will have a spiritual shield or impenetrable armour that no Russian hybrid information propaganda will be able to penetrate. After all, what is actually the problem behind the outbreak of this war? The war began with the fact that Russia, thanks to its movies, music, books, its performing artists, who did not leave Ukraine, erased the cultural information borders as much as possible, and at some point Russia, for some reason, decided that these borders were erased to such an extent that they could enter with tanks. They decided that it would be very easy to conquer Ukraine, because there would be “no difference”, that is, no one would feel the difference. But no, precisely thanks to the identity, the national nucleus, which for a very long time was persistently maintained by part of the Ukrainian society, although a smaller part, we were able to tough it out, we were able to form our national vision and the nationwide opposition or resistance.
Therefore, culture and the Vyshyvanka Museum, as part of this culture, is the first answer to the question: whether we are defending ourselves? Or whether we are giving up? That is, culture is a way of thinking and it is the answer to the question: do we have our values for which we are ready to die? Or we do not care and are ready to accept someone else’s values?
Far more than one generation of dissidents and cultural figures spoke about this. Fortunately, now many Ukrainians [started] to hear this and see it clearly. It’s a pity we are paying this cost, but I really hope that this will be an irreversible process. Certainly, like everyone else, I dream of Ukraine’s victory, but of such a victory when we defeat the enemy once and for all. That is, when we win, and Russia ceases to exist, and the peoples enslaved by Russia finally wake up and start fighting for their independence too. Each of those who endured for so many years. I also dream of seeing my friends on the Vyshyvanka Day in our peacetime country. Those friends who are currently at the front in terrible conditions. In trenches filled with water, amidst swampy earth, snow, rain, mud, and dirt, where they have to spend their nights somehow. I dream of seeing them on the Vyshyvanka Day, in May, simply looking beautiful, in perfectly ironed white vyshyvankas, somewhere in the city centre, at some wonderful event. And they would be showing some photos from the war as photos from their past.
When quoting a story, a reference to the source – the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation – is mandatory, as follows:
The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/
