By Olha Chepil | 2024-09-16

KYIV -- Ukrainian volunteers are fortifying museums, erecting protective structures around monuments, dismantling stained-glass windows in churches, and saving historic and architectural monuments from destruction by Russian invaders.

On a recent Saturday morning, about 100 Ukrainians -- concerned amateurs, architect-restorers and local residents -- gathered in Kozelets village, Chernihiv province.

They dropped everything on a weekend to save a crumbling site from destruction: an 18th-century Cossack estate the locals call Pokorshchyna.

"This is the oldest wooden Cossack estate that still exists in Left-Bank Ukraine ... it still has loads of extraordinary details, like 18th-century cornices and doors," Kyiv-based architect-restorer Serhiy Yurchenko told Kontur.

The house was built in the mid-18th century along the Oster river.

During its 300-year history, it belonged to different clans that represented Cossack leadership. These include the Darahanovs and Galaganovs. One theory holds that it was owned by Natalia Rozumykha, the mother of the last Ukrainian hetman.

The architectural ensemble of the estate is a monument of national importance. The Chernihiv provincial government owns the buildings, while the municipality of Kozelets owns the land.

Yurchenko described the neglect that ravaged the unprotected, unfunded estate during the past 30 years.

"The manor is made of wood, which water quickly destroys. Water has seeped into the ceiling ... The building will fall to pieces this winter if nothing is done," Yurchenko said.

Yurchenko has archival photos of the interiors of Pokorshchyna taken in the early 20th century. They show baroque frescoes in the chinoiserie style on the walls, tiled stoves and valuable furniture.

But now the main building is falling apart.

In recent years homeless locals occupied the house, and the rooms were filled with garbage, bottles and syringes. The last hope to salvage this monument is for volunteers to come together and do everything themselves, Yurchenko said.

"There are three things that urgently need attention: the roof, the ground floor and the beams. If we can fix all of that, the house won't be destroyed. That's the only way we can save this estate," Yurchenko said.

'Revive our identity'

On this Saturday, the estate buzzes with activity.

Young volunteers haul garbage away with tractors, trim trees while standing in crane buckets and cut the grass. The Kozelets municipality lent them the equipment.

Alina Krainyaya, a financial controller in Kyiv, traveled 70km to help clean up the estate, prompted by an ad she had seen the day before.

"I'm off today, and I just would have spent the day on my phone or some other device," she told Kontur. "I wouldn't have done anything constructive."

"In doing this we'll be able to revive our identity, our Ukrainian roots," she added.

The volunteers cleared the trash and boarded up the windows and doors. Now Pokorshchyna is ready for the next step in this endeavor.

To save the site and do urgent work before winter sets in, the volunteers are raising money. Through social networks they already have raised about 1 million UAH (€21,654), a third of what they need.

The organizers are considering how to use the site after restoration.

"The war will end sooner or later. Our young people who are fighting ... need to feel that they have a home and that someone is waiting for them, that they have loved ones, that there is land, that a historical memory has been preserved here," Serhiy Morhunenko, director of the charity Blyskavka, told Kontur.

During the invasion, Ukrainians have started to cherish their history and culture. Reviving and rescuing historic buildings, statues and museums have become popular among the younger generation.

"It's happening practically all over the country," said Morhunenko. "If we don't preserve the past, we could lose the future."

'The most important thing to do'

This is not the first instance of Ukrainians independently trying to safeguard cultural heritage sites.

For instance, volunteer historians in Zaporizhzhia are working on salvaging, preserving and studying the cultural heritage of the front-line municipalities of Zaporizhzhia province, where 72% of the territory is under Russian occupation.

And in Chernihiv, volunteers have taken charge of restoring the wooden tracery on the facade of a late 19th-century building.

"Different cities are rebuilding in different ways," Morhunenko said.

"Chernihiv, Sumy and Kyiv provinces have sustained considerable damage during the full-scale invasion. ... In wartime, preserving your history and identity is the most important thing to do."

After the full-scale war on Ukraine began, Ukrainians wrapped up monuments and park sculptures in protective netting, boarded them up and sandbagged them to shield them from potential destruction.

As of May, Russian invaders had damaged or destroyed 1,062 cultural heritage sites, according to the Culture Ministry.

Without help from the general public, the state will not be able to handle the colossal rebuilding work on its own.

"My heart is bleeding because historical memory is crumbling before my eyes," Morhunenko said. "What will we then teach our young people?"