Ukraine, in Chernihiv severe damage to 1901 neo-Gothic building, home of a library

In Ukraine, in the city of Chernihiv, some 300,000 inhabitants north of the capital Kiev, shelling that has been hitting it for days in the context of the Russian invasion has caused severe damage to Tarnovskyj House, an important early 20th-century neo-Gothic building built between 1900 and 1901 as the home of the collection of philanthropist Vasyl Vasylovič Tarnovskyj, and later became, in 1902, the home of the first Chernihiv Museum of Ukrainian Antiquities, which was housed here in 1979 before being moved to another building. By 1980 Tarnovskyj House had become home to a children’s library. The building is one of the main vestiges of the neo-Gothic revival in Ukraine.

Breaking the news of the devastation (and publishing photos) was the director of the Chernihiv Historical Museum, Serhiy Laiev’skyj. The house, Laiev’skyj wrote, “survived the bombings of the Bolseviks in 1918 and 1919, survived World War II and the bombs of the Nazis. The Moscow horde devastated a very beautiful building from the late 19th century and a monument of local history.”

Chernihiv, one of the cities hardest hit by Russian bombing by virtue of its location (it is a short distance from the Russian border and on the way to the capital), is also one of the oldest cities in Ukraine: its historic center is one of the best consserved in the country, and there are several important monuments (churches, cathedrals, museums, sumptuous 18th- and 19th-century palaces). The historic center of Chernihiv moreover is part (even since 1989) of the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, i.e., the list of sites aspiring to become part of the World Heritage.

Ukraine, in Chernihiv severe damage to 1901 neo-Gothic building, home of a library

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