Help us to save Ukrainian cultural heritage

Why does Ukraine need Ark 2?

The invasion of Ukraine was launched by Russia at the end of February 2022. Since then, the Russians have been ruthlessly killing civilians and destroying the civilian and economic infrastructure of the country.

It is absolutely clear that the Russians are also purposely destroying Ukrainian culture - historical buildings, statues, paintings, libraries and a huge number of objects that document the history of the Ukrainian nation.

In Mariupol, for example, Russian soldiers broke into a museum and stole precious paintings, statues and highly valuable and rare Christian icons, and according to available data, Russian soldiers have already stolen two thousand works of art.

We cannot prevent the Russians from stealing and destroying in Ukraine, but we can help Ukraine to mitigate at least part of the losses.

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Who is behind the project?

The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Czech Committee of ICOM, the Foundation Fund for Ukraine and the National Library of the Czech Republic. The project is a part of the Support of Ukrainian Culture programme of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the ICOM Czech Committee.

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The collection is for the Ark 2 project, does that mean that Ark 1 already exists?

Yes. Ark 1 is a mobile conservation facility. It's a van that has fundamentally different equipment than Ark 2. It will be preserving written cultural heritage in different places in Ukraine. Ark 1 cost CZK 10 million and the Karel Komarek Family Foundation, MND a.s. and Mr Libor Winkler and his friends helped pay for its purchase. And for that we owe them a big thank you.