Russia damaged Odesa's 55 cultural heritage sites in July – Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab

Photo: HeMo

Alvina Kaminska

In Odesa, the regional center of the country's south, the HeMo: Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab, heritage monitoring team recorded damage to 55 cultural sites due to the Russian enemy missile attacks in July.

Since July 28, a team from different cities of Ukraine has been working on documenting the damage caused by Russian missiles to Odesa,  Lviv, Drohobych, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Ukrainian Pravda Life writes.

Museum workers examined almost all the damaged sites except for a few that were not accessible. They noted that there was not a single military structure among the damaged buildings.

"International law considers such destructions as war crimes, and we will continue to work on preparing materials for lawsuits before the International Criminal Court.

Lots of buildings got wrecked, hard to spot right away. Most of the objects around the places of hits have deep cracks, which can lead to severe consequences in the long-term perspective," emphasized documentation specialist Roksolana Makar.

^{Photo: HeMo}

Among the sites documented by the HeMo team:

• Transfiguration Cathedral and the historical buildings next to it,
• Odesa House of Scientists,
• Odesa Music Lyceum named after Stolyarsky,
• a complex of historical residential buildings on Preobrazhenska Street in the UNESCO-protected area.

^{Photo: HeMo}

"An unfortunate situation happened with the House of Scientists in Odesa: in the morning after the shelling, without the supervision of the monument protection services, workers of communal services collected in bags together with construction waste many small elements of unique decoration of facades, window fittings…

Suppose it is already impossible to return the element to its place. In that case, it is at least essential to save it and use it as a sample during the restoration," said the expedition leader Ivan Shchurko about the difficulties in the work.

What is known about the amount of damage that UNESCO has calculated?

On July 29, after the Russian army shelled the historic center of Odessa, the UNESCO mission arrived in the city.

^{Photo: HeMo}

And on July 31, specialists of the organization released an updated list of cultural monuments in Ukraine damaged by the Russians. In it, the organization calculated the total amount of damage by destination group (museums, libraries, churches, etc.). In addition, they also recorded landmarks that were destroyed depending on the region.

In this list, UNESCO recorded eight damaged cultural sites in Odesa. In particular, it is:

• Odesa Art Museum,
• Odesa Archaeological Museum,
• Odesa Maritime Museum,
• Odesa Literary Museum,
• Church of St. Nicholas,
• Transfiguration Cathedral,
• Chyzhevych residential building,
• Solomos house.

As Rubryka wrote, on the day of the biggest attack, July 23, the organization issued an official statement condemning Russia's shelling of Odesa.

"UNESCO is deeply concerned and condemns in the strongest possible terms the brazen attack carried out by Russian troops, as a result of which several cultural objects were damaged in the center of the city of Odesa, where the World Heritage site "Historic Center of Odesa" is located," it said.

The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy shared photos and videos of the work of the UNESCO mission in Odesa. They noted that it would continue in the coming days.