St. Sophia of Kyiv. Fixing mistakes

Had we dallied a little bit more, we wouldn’t have recognized St. Sophia’s Cathedral at all – it would have become a city park, a kind of a recreation center for kids to play. Think about it – a cozy, quiet, and serene courtyard, birds are singing and the earliest spring flowers bloom; a couple of swings, slides and children’s huts will fit in perfectly, right? And it is not someone’s imagination, but a real possibility, documented on paper – such was the development project for the UNESCO World Heritage Site, prepared by Olena Serdiuk, director of the site, who has already been sacked. If she had an opportunity to stay in charge, these plans on paper would have been materialized directly in the Sophia’s courtyard.

The Ministry of Culture thwarted these plans. Right in time, I would say. Ihor Likhovy, deputy minister, said such a decision had been made as a result of the audit, which had uncovered numerous violations. The audit itself was carried because of the ruined cathedral wall, which collapsed in October 2014. The incumbent acting director is Nelia Kukovalska, who had already been in charge from 2000 to 2012.

The audit, performed by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with community experts, discovered that Serdiuk had not been following the legislation on monument protection; furthermore, financial irregularities amounting to as much as one million hryvnias, had been noticed. Of this money, 200,000 must be compensated to the state budget – the case was already handed down to law enforcement.

Therefore, the Ministry felt that it had enough ground for sacking the director. The state of the site is appalling. The recent Sophia visitors could have seen the plaster peeling off in some places, the cracks in the fence. On the site of the collapsed wall, which had not been rebuild as of yet, there is a wooden block, some brick piles and a caution sign asking visitors not to come closer.

And it was only what the eyes of an ordinary guest could see. The community experts, who took part in the audit, revealed even worse things. Olena Plamenytska, Ukrainian Museum Association member, says that she hoped for a better condition of the site, as Serdiuk is the vice-president of the Ukrainian National ICOMOS Committee Bureau.

“The Ministry of Culture approved the site’s master plan, in which five security zones had been defined, along with the basic principles for its management. However, for reasons unknown, Serdiuk ordered a new “Concept for site’s organization” to Heritage Research Institute – the new document duplicates the existing master plan in its meaning, but had a large sum of public money spent for it. It was this Concept that suggested converting the site to an entertainment center for children,” says Plamenytska. According to this concept, the site would have featured temporary pavilions selling souvenirs – trinkets in the style of ancient Rus’ made of plastic. Inside the Cathedral – a monument of 11th century! – a conditioning system was to be installed. Interestingly, the price of this system, about 170,000, had already been paid to the construction company, but there are no conditioners yet, fortunately.

“First and foremost, before such a project can be considered, it must be put before the Scientific Restoration Council. Such a project can negatively impact the state of frescoes and mosaics. Consider all the centuries the Cathedral stood without any conditioning. Additionally, some archeological excavation and restoration work have been performed in 2013 and 2014, of which UNESCO had not been informed. The similar program for mosaic restoration was developed – but the experts definitely dismissed it, as it was very shallow. There was even a program for further excavation till 2065, laid out on 20 sheets of paper,” Plamenytska adds.

Consider what would have left of Sophia, had all the plans come to life. Nelia Kukovalska, having been appointed as an acting director for the moment, has to fix all the mistakes of her predecessor and to revive the glory of St. Sophia. The director promised that restoring the monuments to normal condition will be of the utmost priority – as for the perfect condition, it requires a lot of money. Also, some heavy paperwork has to be done, thus she asks patrons to help rebuild the sanctuary. A board of trustees was established, composed of 20 people. The board’s task would be not only supervising and monitoring the monuments’ condition, but also fundraising.

Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
ФОТО РУСЛАНА КАНЮКИ / «День»

The site includes not only St. Sophia’s Cathedral itself, Kukovalska is determined to save St. Andrew’s Church as well.

“The ruthless exploitation in the hands of Autocephalous church led to the fact that the iconostasis looks like it’s not gilded, but silver-coated. In the future we will try to reduce the amount of sermons, limit the smoke from candles and perform a redecoration of the interior. We will ask the benefactors, the church, and the state for the money. Our next step would be improving the scientific activity, because what I had just seen was not a science. We have plans to establish the school of Nina Mykytenko, an expert on St. Sophia. She was thrown out of the cathedral in the past, but she has a lot of pupils, one of them is going to defend his doctoral thesis next month. Later we want to create the St. Sophia Research Institute. The 70th anniversary of UNESCO seems to be the closest opportunity for that step. Some other ideas are also in development, we are constantly improving our plans. Our public relations also need to be revised. We are going to renew our connection with European colleagues; the ‘Anna Yaroslavna’ project is underway, which I am sure will help our country a lot. And I believe we will be able to recover the relics of prince Yaroslav the Wise – all I know for now that they are in the US,” Kukovalska said.

Kukovalska promises a change in staff, bringing back some of her trusted personnel, and checking the new ones. She complains about sabotage activity she encountered on her first day at work, but all the rough edges will be smoothed, though it probably won’t be very easy. After her appointment a lot of rumors came up, both in praise and in criticism. Those of the community who has kept an eye on the events regarding the sanctuary management, fully support the decision of the Ministry: Kukovalska had successfully managed the site from 2000 to 2012, and in this time many objects were restored: the gate of Zborovsky, the Metropolitan’s house, the gate of Kings in the Cathedral, the bell tower. Some of the experts are disappointed on the lack of open competition for the role, but the Ministry states that there is no legal basis for it.

As for Serdiuk, ex-director, she wants to appeal on the matter to the court. She states that she sees no reason for her firing and insists that the cathedral has been seized by raiders. She confirmed in the conversation with The Day, that following the new Concept she wanted to make the institution open for all citizens of Kyiv.

“The site has changed its policy, as it lost the role of an establishment for diplomatic receptions and parties in Metropolitan’s house. Children’s programs became a norm in our society, thus ‘Sophia for Children’ project became our priority,” Serdiuk says. “As for the restoration, the site had not received a single hryvnia from the state since 2011. Past year we spent two million hryvnias on restoration; the money came from our so-called special funds, which we earned by ourselves, in particular by hosting that events for children, the quests and so on. Only following the statewide celebration of the Baptism of Rus’ we were given a modest sum of money – 300,000 for restoring the paintings inside the cathedral; we also restored mosaics thanks to the funding of one American charity foundation. All the other expenses we paid for with the money earned here.”

Serdiuk also maintains some questions to her predecessor – when she came to the post, two objects were missing the necessary paperwork, the roof in the Metropolitan’s house was leaking – in fact, the quality of the roof coating is so poor that new leaks appear constantly. The conditioning system in Metropolitan’s house was out of order; the gate of Zborovsky had to be insulated. Two years was simply not enough for her to clean up everything she received. As for St. Andrew’s, the state promised some money for its restoration, but she never get to see it.

But now it is important not to downplay the situation to a mere personal conflict. Some proper actions must take place.