Protection, exfiltration, inventory… In Ukraine, a race against time to protect works of art threatened by war

“What you hear there is one of the remaining sirens on my phone.” From Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi’s cell phone comes a shrill alarm, to which the Ukrainians have been accustomed since the beginning of the war. “It comes from an application that warns when there is a risk of air attack”precise the head of the office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) in Ukraine, contacted by franceinfo.

This 52-year-old Italian moved to kyiv in October. Comparable to the action of the “Monuments Men”, a group created in 1943 to recover works of art stolen by the Nazis, its mission is to help protect Ukrainian cultural heritage threatened by the conflict with Russia.

This is not the first time that the UNESCO representative has intervened in an emergency situation. Iraq, Libya, South Sudan… Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi is used to war zones. In kyiv, she recognizes that it is not easy every day. But the Italian is convinced: “We need culture to live, it’s our spark”. “And here we are facing a critical moment, where we risk losing an immense heritage. Now is the time to intervene”she hammers.

Several hundred sites damaged

For her first mission to Ukraine, the UNESCO representative went to Odessa, in the south of the country: “I participated in the work of protecting statues in the city. They were surrounded by sandbags, to mitigate the impact of air attacks, and covered with fireproof fabric, to protect them from a possible fire”. The historic center of the city was also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on January 25, despite opposition from Russia. This provides the Odessa sites with additional legal protection, according to the Unesco spokesperson: “It means that all the Member States undertake to do everything possible to protect this site. They have a legal obligation vis-à-vis the international community”.

Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi also supervises and inspects emergency rehabilitation works, financed by Unesco, such as those carried out at the Museum of Fine Arts in Odessa. In July, part of the glass roof and windows of the building, inaugurated in 1899, were destroyed. “The glass roof has been repaired and the windows protected by wooden panels. These temporary measures aim to preserve the collections from subsequent attacks”she explains.

The Odessa Museum of Fine Arts is not an isolated case. Burned, looted, destroyed… This is the sad fate reserved for many Ukrainian cultural places since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Collateral damage or targets of attacks, “more than 1,000 sites were damaged” in total, assured the Ukrainian Minister of Culture at the end of December to BFMTV. Unesco, which maintains its own list and verifies each degradation it adds to it, was counting on 238 sites affected as of February 8.

This count was obtained thanks to a collaboration with the UN satellite imagery agency. “When we have reason to believe that a site has been damaged, we ask our colleagues at Unosat to confirm it via satellite images.explains Krista Pikkat, director of the culture and emergency situations department of Unesco. Which is not always easy: when there are clouds above the place, for example, we cannot do the verification. Asked in mid-February, Unesco confirmed to franceinfo that none of the eight Ukrainian sites listed on its world heritage (except downtown Odessa) had been affected.

The cold, that other enemy of works

Other cultural venues have not been so lucky. One of the first to bear the brunt of the fighting is the picturesque Ivankiv Museum, northwest of kyiv. Until then, it housed colorful paintings by the famous Maria Primachenko, an emblematic Ukrainian painter of the early 20th century, hailed by Picasso himself. On February 27, 2022, just three days after the start of the conflict, his works went up in smoke. The museum was burned down by the Russian army, causing a stir among curators, artists and other cultural professionals.

Immediately, international organizations were put in working order. Among them, the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (Aliph), a foundation created in 2017 to help various countries (Mali, Syria, Yemen, etc.) to rehabilitate their heritage decimated by war. A few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was urgent to protect the objects housed in museums and libraries.

Failing to go on site, security obliges, “we very quickly sent metal boxes and bubble wrap to several institutions to package their works”, recalls Elsa Urtizverea, who follows Aliph’s projects in Ukraine. This help proved invaluable for the Khanenko museum in kyiv, hit by Russian bombing on 10 October. “Thanks to the protective equipment sent at the beginning of the conflict, his collection of 25 000 works was spared”, reports Elsa Urtizverea. But in the face of the winter cold, securing paintings and archives is no longer enough, according to a French specialist in the protection of heritage in times of war, on condition of anonymity.

“Offering boxes and foam is good, but there is also a need for generators. Leaving a museum in the cold puts its works at risk.”

A French specialist in the protection of heritage in times of war

at franceinfo

Under the effect of low temperatures, acrylic paints can thus crack, emphasizes the Canadian Institute for the Conservation of Heritage Collections. This risk is reinforced by the successive power cuts, and therefore heating, caused by the Russian strikes on the Ukrainian power stations. “This is a new problem, which we have never faced in Iraq or Afghanistan”, underlines Elsa Urtizverea, of the Aliph. Especially since generators have become a rare commodity. “We are trying to find as many as possible but, for the moment, we are on the waiting list until February”worries the art history expert.

The evacuation of collections, “an intense and tense operation”

Faced with these difficulties, and when the Ukrainian authorities and institutions so request, guardian angels of heritage opt for a radical solution: the transfer of works to other countries. Mid-November, qome 70 paintings have thus been removed from the National Museum of Art of Ukraine, in kyiv, to be exhibited at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. This operation required substantial logistics. “Preparing for the expedition was a nightmare, confides Konstantin Akinsha, curator of the exhibition in Spain and originally from Ukraine, contacted by franceinfo. Selecting the works, packing them, finding a reliable transport company… And that with the current that jumped every hour! I have a lot of admiration for my Ukrainian colleagues.”

On November 15, the day the convoy left, the Ukrainian capital was the target of bombardments attributed to the Russian army. Within an hour, the paintings would never have left kyiv. “When the city was attacked, the trucks were already on the road and weren’t hit, thank God. You can’t imagine what a party it was when they arrived in Spain. It was an operation really intense and tense”testifies Konstantin Akinsha. Gathered until April in the exhibition “In the eye of the storm. Avant-garde in Ukraine, 1900-1930”, the paintings will then continue their journey to Cologne (Germany). A way of “to protect the works for a while and to highlight Ukrainian art”, insists the curator.

The rehabilitation of heritage already anticipated

Evacuating heritage from Ukraine is not an ideal solution, however, according to professionals in the sector. “It’s a very sensitive issue. To move the works is to take the risk that they will be looted during the evacuation”, underlines a French specialist in the protection of heritage in times of war. Because thefts of artifacts are legion in Ukraine. The Russian army thus embarked more than a hundred thousand works and objects from the Kherson Regional Museum of Folk Art. Almost the entire collection.

The goal of Aliph and Unesco is to ensure that looted art returns to Ukrainian institutions at the end of the conflict. For this, the organizations help in the preparation of inventories, a measure provided for by the Hague Convention on the protection of cultural property in time of war.