At this very moment Mariupol is being destroyed and its citizens, as in many other Ukrainian cities, are being indiscriminately killed by the invading Russian army. Loss of lives is a crime against of humanity. Destruction of cultural heritage is an attempt to deny the people of Ukraine their identity. Mariupol has – now we have to say had – one of the largest collections of mosaic muralism in Ukraine. This pathfinder shows just one facet of the cultural treasures Ukraine is loosing in this war…
19 artists from all over Ukraine worked in the city in the period from 1963 to 1987. Among them were such renowned masters of the genre as Alla Gorska, Viktor Zaretsky, Valeriy Lamah, Ernest Kotkov, Galina Zubchenko, Boris Plaksiy. However, no less significant contribution was made by the representatives of the local school: Valentyn Konstantinov, Lel Kuzminkov, Viktor Arnautov, Grygory Pryshedko, Yakov Raisin, Mykola Tykhonov, Oleksandr Kecheji, Viktor Ponomariov, Petro Kot and others.
Prepared by Ivan Stanislavskyi (Іван Станіславський) & Olexandr Chernov (Олександр Чернов)