(RNS) — For those working to safeguard Ukraine’s religious and cultural heritage, the threats of moisture, sunlight and mishandling have taken a backseat to bullets, bombs and looting.
Up against four years of destruction and counting, a dedicated cadre of scholars, artists and museum workers in Ukraine and around the world is working to preserve and immortalize what they can — if not physically then digitally.
In mid-June, Russian drones struck an 11th-century church, Ukraine’s most important religious site. The church and its associated cave and monastery complex, called the Kyiv Perchesk-Lavra, is revered by Eastern Orthodox Christians globally and contains hundreds of icons and relics, including a crypt of saints from across the centuries.
The June 15 strike started fires in the Dormition Cathedral and damaged several other buildings on the grounds, which will take an estimated 10 million euros to restore, according to Ukrainian officials. The strike was among the most damaging to Ukraine’s cultural and religious heritage since the outbreak of the full-scale war in February 2022.
“Before this attack, we knew that they could target our culture, so we are already trying to preserve everything we can,” said Kateryna Shapovalova, the custodian of collections at the Museum of Kyiv History.
The Ark for Ukraine project, which Shapovalova is part of, has, since 2023, brought three mobile labs to Ukraine to help preserve Ukrainian cultural heritage by scanning archives of thousands of manuscripts, artifacts and even buildings to digitize them.
Shapovalova signed up to train with an ark unit after surviving a missile strike on her apartment complex that destroyed her own home.
“I want to save our culture and preserve what I can because I can see how it can stay in mine and everyone’s mentality when something precious can be destroyed,” she said, saying she felt so devastated after losing her apartment that she needed medication.
Arks I and II mobile units, established as a partnership between the national libraries of Ukraine and the Czech Republic, scan in 2D.
Ark III, a partnership between the Kyiv …