The story of the war, immortalized in real time. A few months after the start of the conflict, the National History Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv began collecting objects left by Russian soldiers on the battlefield for display. A way to document the ongoing conflict and give Ukrainians a better understanding of this war, reports The Guardian.
The initiative comes from Oleksandr Lukianov, a researcher at the museum. At the start of the conflict, in February 2022, he and his colleagues dismantled the exhibitions in progress and sent the precious objects to the west of the country for safekeeping. Other objects are stored in the basement, to be protected in the event of an explosion. The various curators of the museum, anxious to protect national treasures, end up living six months within the walls of the museum.
It is during these months when they live surrounded by the works that the researcher has an idea. One day, when he sees a Russian helicopter hit by fire from the Ukrainian army, he thinks he could document the war. On April 7, 2022, he and his colleagues go to Irpin, which the Russians have just left to collect objects for the museum. “First there was the army, then the legal experts, then us,” he told the Guardian.
They collect what they find on the spot: damaged helmets and goggles. The violence of war is still visible in the streets of Irpin. “We saw and smelled decomposing bodies,” he recalls, “but our curiosity got the better of us, as did the desire to seek history.” In the following months, other expeditions are organized to collect other objects.
More than a year later, Lukyanov and his colleagues have managed to collect all kinds of objects: a Russian soldier’s boot, a tool for measuring radioactivity, food rations that belonged to Russian soldiers. To the collection of researchers are added the donations of soldiers and local residents.
To commemorate the first year of the conflict, the researchers designed an exhibition specially dedicated to the soldiers of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. Dozens of men had died during the siege of the industrial site. Next to the portraits of all the deceased, objects that belonged to them. Everything is on display in the museum, which Ukrainians can come and visit.