21 May 2008 16:11

Ukraine 3000 Foundation Awards Winners of the Museum Event of the Year Third All-Ukrainian Action and Fourth Program to Support Museum Workers

May 21, 2008, the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation summarized the results and awarded the winners of the Museum Event of the Year Third All-Ukrainian Action and Fourth Program to Support Museum Workers. Among the participants of the ceremony, hosted by the ARENA ENTERTAINMENT club, were Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation Kateryna Yushchenko, Head of the Board of Directors Oleksandr Maksymchuk, Head of the Supervisory Board of the Mandarin Plaza Closed Corporation Vagif Aliyev, museum workers, representatives of the Ukrainian Museum Development Center, National Television Company of Ukraine, and Ukraine 3000 Foundation.

The most interesting and high-profile projects by Ukrainian museums in 2007 were celebrated at the ceremony, participants of the 2007-2008 Program to Support Museum Workers presented, and results of the first stage of the Five Star Museum action announced. By a tradition, the Mandarin Plaza Closed Corporation was sponsoring the project for the third year in a row.

Addressing the audience, Mrs. Kateryna Yushchenko greeted all present on the occasion of the International Museum Day (May 18). She said that preserving Ukraine’s cultural heritage through supporting domestic museums was among first priorities of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation. Mrs. Kateryna noted the Ukrainian museum workers’ high professional level and devotedness to their work.

In Mrs. Yushchenko’s words, all museum problems can be solved if the society consolidates its efforts to support Ukrainian museums. “In other countries being “a friend of a museum,” being involved into its work is a very respectable thing,” she said. ‘We’d like to bring it into vogue in Ukraine, too. We’d like the society to define on its own, without waiting for a state support, what our heritage will be and in what condition we shall pass it to our descendants.” Mrs. Kateryna emphasized the fact that “the number of persons and companies, who see supporting the museums as their own business, is growing in Ukraine every year.”

Mrs. Yushchenko also spoke about the current and future programs the Ukraine 3000 Foundation is implementing as part of its Museum Development program, in part, the foundation of a museum library and the Five Star Museum project.

In addition, Mrs. Kateryna said that the museum staff members, NGOs, and the state “should start creating easy access to our museums for the handicapped.”

The winners of the Museum Event of the Year Third All-Ukrainian Action and Fourth Program to Support Museum Workers were greeted and awarded by Mrs. Yushchenko and Messrs. Maksymchuk and Aliyev.

The guests of the ceremony also got a chance to familiarize themselves with books from the funds of the Museum Library being created at the Ukrainian Museum Development Center. In particular, they were presented Ukrainian and foreign publications on various fields of the museum business, purchased in 2007 at the costs of the project’s sponsor, the Mandarin Plaza Closed Corporation.

The winners of the Museum Event of the Year Third All-Ukrainian Action are:

Museum Event 2007 nomination

First place – not awarded;
Second place – Aivazovsky one-man show at the Kyiv Museum of the Russian Art, March 9 – April 17, 2007;
Second place – the Reflection exhibition, PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv), October 2007– February 2008.
Third place – the unveiling of the Berdiansk Brodsky Arts Museum new premises, Jume 2007.

Special award from the Preserving Historical Memory Organizing Committee – The Declassified Memory Exhibition Project (the Security Service of Ukraine).

Special award from the Preserving Historical Memory Organizing Committee – the Ukrainian Traditional Toys and Dolls annual exhibition (Taras Shevchenko National Museum, National Architecture and Material Culture Museum at the NASU. Curator – Oleksiy Dolia).

Special award from the Enriching Museum Traditions Organizing Committee – the celebration of the Lviv Art Gallery’s 100th anniversary.

As part of the 2008-2009 Program to Support Museum Workers winners, a financial assistance of UAH 4,500 in June 2008 (with a possibility of a recurrent payment of the same amount in January 2009) will be paid to:

Hanna Bantsekova, Lviv Arts Gallery.
Yuri Bilan, Ukraine’s Historic Valuables Museum (Kyiv.
Vasyl Biloshapka, Oleksandriv District Local History Museum (Kirovohrad oblast).
Viktor Hniedashev, Yakymiv District Local History Museum (Zaporizhzhia oblast).
Alla Holovachova, Anton Chekhov Mansion-Museum (Yalta, the Crimea).
Svitlana Darchyk, Research Center to Study the Ostroh Academy Heritage (Rivne oblast).
Vasyl Moroz, Ethnography and Material Culture Museum of the Sadzhava Village (Bohorodcha district, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast).
Tetiana Petryk, History Museum of the Savarka Village (Bohuslav district, Kyiv oblast).
Liudmyla Saulenko, Odesa Museum of the Western and Eastern Arts.
Mykhaylo Sokhatsky, Borshchiv Oblast Community Local History Museum (Ternopil oblast).

As part of the 2008-2009 Program to Support Museum Workers winners, a non-recurrent financial assistance of UAH 600 will be paid to:

Mukola Kokshaykin, Shostka State Local History Museum (Sumy oblast).
Hlib Kudriashov, People’s Artiste of Ukraine cum Hero of Ukraine Rayisa Kirichenko Museum (Poltava).
Liliya Lysheha, Stepan Havryliuk History Museum in Tysmenytsia( Ivano-Frankivsk oblast).
Ihor Oleshchuk, Ternopil Oblast Local History Museum.
Iryna Ralchenko, Chernihiv Oblast Arts Museum.
Bohdan Savak, Denysiv Local History Museum (Koziv district, Ternopil Oblast).
Vira Stetsko, Ternopil Oblast Local History Museum.
Serhiy Tupyk, Putyvl State History and Culture Preserve (Sumy Oblast).
Ivan Shepa, Berehivshchyna Museum (Zakarpattia oblast).

The Museum Event of the Year is a joint project by the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation, Ukrainian Center for Museum Development, and National Television Company of Ukraine. It was launched in 2006 to attract public attention to the most important events and trends in the Ukrainian museums sphere and stimulate the museums’ staff to give more publicity to their projects. In 2007, 24 museum events in various Ukraine regions were competing for the title of The Best. The winners were selected through the voting by around 100 experts – journalists, museum workers, public figure, etc. The prize fund of the action is UAH 50,000.

The Program to Support Museum Workers, a joint project by the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation and Ukrainian Center for Museum Development, was launched in 2005. Its major goal is offering beneficial aid to the professionals who make their museum a central piece of the cultural space in their region, serving the society and popularizing the cultural heritage preserved in their museum. In the four years of its work, dozens of museum workers from throughout Ukraine have received their beneficial aid within the program’s framework. The total sum of the payments in 2005-2007 was around UAH 300,000. This year, 45 museum workers from all Ukraine’s regions applied to the program.

The Five Star Museum action was initiated by the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation, Ukrainian Center for Museum Development in April 2008. The major goal of this action-contest is showing Ukrainian museums from the viewpoint of an average visitor. To this end, a special correspondent of the Ukraine’s Museum Space web portal visited incognito around 30 Ukrainian museums in the April and early May of 2008. Note that this action wasn’t about comparing the museum collections’ quality and content, research work, etc. Every museum or its collection is unique and self-sufficient, being an integral part of the national cultural heritage. The organizers meant to attract the attention of the museum community and broad public to the only aspect of a museum’s operation: working with the public, which is an indicator of a museum’s viability and a guarantee of its success.