Kyiv museum documents Russia-Ukraine war through objects abandoned by Russian forces
From military boots to missile shells, Dmytro Hainetdinov and his team created art from destruction
A museum in Kyiv is documenting the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war by displaying objects left behind by Russian forces.
"When this war started, we realized it's our mission to prepare a project devoted to this war, to document this war, to highlight this war, to spread information," said Dmytro Hainetdinov, who works at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.
The exhibition, called Ukraine: Crucifixion, features displays and installations made of everyday items such as boots and food jars, as well as weapons of war, such as the shells of Russia's surface-to-air Buk missiles.
All of the items were gathered by the museum's team from the ground in Ukraine.
"When we visited all these places, of course, it had a very strong emotional impact on me and … other members of the expedition, because we saw many destroyed settlements," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.
"But I, as well as many of my colleagues, want to accumulate these emotions, these impressions, into our profession, so that we can work in the information sphere of Ukraine now … because right now silence is the worst Ukrainian enemy."
Those who committed crimes have to be punished, have to be brought to responsibility.-Dmytro Hainetdinov
The exhibit was launched on May 8, which marks Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender in the Second World War.
Hainetdinov, who's the head of the museum's education department, said opening the exhibit on that day was important because it stresses that "this war is a direct continuation of the World War II processes" by Russia.
"We would like to demonstrate that the ghosts of World War II are very close, and we have the aggressive power impersonally personified in the Russian leadership and in the Russian ideology," he said.
The other side
The exhibit is split into four different parts in four rooms, and each room focuses on a different part of the war.
Some rooms, such as the first part of the exhibit, focus on "the army of the occupiers, the ammunition, the equipment, the weapons … as well as the samples of their propaganda," Hainetdinov said.
Others focus on the destruction endured by Ukrainian cities, and feature installations made of the debris found across Ukraine.
"In room number two, I see the photos of the destruction in the settlements of Kyiv and Chernihiv regions on the wall — and the hall is filled with installations made of the Russian weapons," he said.
"For example, I can see here the cluster bombs used by the Russian army to destroy the settlements and to inflict severe casualties on the Ukrainian population."
Our purpose was to demonstrate what difficulties the particular people [had] because of this war.
Some of the items displayed in the museum are one-of-a-kind, such as a unique Russian-owned map that marked police stations, administrative buildings and metro stations in eastern Kyiv; and a handwritten diary owned by a Russian officer who was stationed in Katyuzhanka, north from Kiev.
"On the one hand, he wrote that he was unsure that the invasion was right, was a good idea," he said. "But then we saw the information about the interrogation of civilians who were called the Nazis."
"In this part, we can see the image of the invaders' army."
Hainetdinov said these artifacts personify the army, and help Ukrainians and other non-Russians understand that these soldiers "are not just abstract enemies," but "real people."
"Those who committed crimes have to be punished, have to be brought to responsibility," he said. "As well as other Ukrainians, I hope for justice for victims of the atrocities."
The real consequences of war
Damian Koropeckyj is a senior analyst and Ukraine team lead at the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab, a partnership between the Virginia Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. He said his team has seen at least 450 potential impacts on Ukraine's cultural heritage since Feb. 24, ranging from "archeological sites to houses of worship, monuments, museums, libraries [and cemeteries]."
"When you have a power who is literally telling you that you do not exist as a people, [these places become] an easy target to then erase that memory or erase that identity," he said.
That's why not everything in the exhibit is Russian-owned. On top of personifying the opposition, Hainetdinov hopes the exhibit will shed a brighter light on the lives of average Ukrainians caught in the middle of the war.
One way he hopes that will be achieved is through the basement part of the exhibit. This features a full recreation of a bomb shelted similar to ones found in Hostomel, Ukraine.
"The people who lived there stayed under the occupation [for] 37 days … in unimaginable difficulties," Hainetdinov said. "It was heavily destroyed and people had to live in the basements without electricity, without heating and without normal conditions."
Hainetdinov called the project a "very special composition." He said they recreated the basements down to their smallest details, from the order of the food jars on the shelves to the blankets used in the shelters.
"We tried to translate even the smell from this place because the smell was horrible. People [were living] without normal sanitary conditions," he said.
Hainetdinov said he understands this is a very sensitive topic and that different people, including different Ukrainians, will have a different understanding of the exhibit — and he respects that.
But Hainetdinov said the goal of this exhibit is to show visitors just how difficult life was for Ukrainians who couldn't flee Russian aggression — and the real, unfiltered consequences of war.
"Of course, no museum and no exhibition can translate all the facets of the war, but it was not our purpose," he said. "Our purpose was to demonstrate what difficulties the particular people [had] because of this war."
Written by Mouhamad Rachini. Produced by Lindsay Rempel.
