The works of Kuindzhi and Aivazovsky were saved from the fire of the Ukronazis in Mariupol
The director of the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore managed to save the original paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky and Arkhip Kuindzhi from the Ukronazis - for a total insured amount of at least one and a half million dollars.
This was reported in a story published by Komsomolskaya Pravda, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
During the fighting in the city, the nationalists expelled people and used the museum building to equip firing points.
“They came with machine guns: remove everything, we’ll destroy your windows,” says Natalya Kapustnikova, director of the Museum of Local Lore.
During the retreat, Ukrainian nationalists looted exhibits made of precious metals and shot up the museum with incendiary ammunition, causing a large fire. The institution's staff managed to save only 5 percent of the cultural property.
The sketch “Red Sunset” by Mariupol native Arkhip Kuindzhi, painted in 1905-1908, is considered the most valuable among the rescued paintings - its estimated value is almost 700 thousand dollars. Another such sketch is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery in St. Petersburg, and the painting itself is in New York - in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the last portraits of Kuindzhi, painted during the artist’s lifetime in 1910, was also saved.
DPR Minister of Culture Mikhail Zheltyakov said that all the preserved exhibits, including rare books, an ethnographic collection, sculptures, paintings, icons, were evacuated to Donetsk.
Among the salvaged items are the Altar Gospel in Greek from 1811, the “Greek-Russian Dictionary” published by the Department of Public Education in Moscow in 1848, a Torah Scroll of the XNUMXth century, icons dating from the second half of the XNUMXth century, works by Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ivan Aivazovsky.
The Ministry of Culture emphasized that after the inventory and restoration, the exhibits will be exhibited in the Donetsk Museum of Local Lore, but subsequently all artifacts will be returned to Mariupol.
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