Kyiv, March 8 (Representative) As Russian forces march on in Ukraine, the volunteers at museums and religious sites are rushing to hide their artifacts to save the cultural treasures from a possible attack. National Museum Director of Lviv, Ihor Kozhan said, “Today we see how Russia is shelling residential areas (and) even people that are evacuating. “They guaranteed they wouldn’t but now we can’t trust them. And we need to take care of our heritage because this is our national treasure.”
According to CNN, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has already destroyed a museum containing works by renowned Ukrainian painter Maria Prymachenko, whose vivid and imaginative art was admired by both Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. The historic center in Ukraine’s cultural capital Lviv is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the National Museum houses the country’s most complete collection of sacred medieval art and rare religious manuscripts. According to CNN, the volunteers on Monday hastily packed away ancient manuscripts, including a thousand-year-old bible decorated with gold thread, in cardboard boxes that are used for transporting bananas to supermarkets.
Meanwhile, the people at religious sites have also started packing away their priceless statues. According to CNN, the Armenian Cathedral of Lviv removed a medieval wooden sculpture, depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, for safe storage. Similarly, the giant stained-glass windows of Lviv’s Latin Cathedral, which survived the World War II, have been boarded up with steel plates.