HRWF (22.07.2024) – After quite a number of expensive missions of UNESCO‘s representatives to Odesa (**), the international organization in charge of the preservation of World Heritage has still not released the donation of 500,000 EUR that Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni has put at their disposal for emergency assistance.
One year ago, on the night of 23 July 2023, Russian troops carried out a massive attack on the territory of Odessa and the region, firing 19 missiles of various types. The blow fell on the historical center of Odessa, included in UNESCO World Heritage List. As a result of the attack, 25 architectural monuments were damaged, in particular the Transfiguration Cathedral. Half of the cathedral was left without a roof, the central piles and foundation were broken in the building, all windows were knocked out, stucco was knocked down. Rescuers and clergy managed to save some icons, including the Kasperovskaya Icon of the Mother of God, who is considered the patroness of Odessa. The Iberian Icon, installed for the 100th anniversary of Odessa, also survived.
Italy’s pledge and UNESCO’s involvement
On the very first day of Russia’s shelling, PM Giorgia Meloni promised to contribute financially to the emergency restoration of the Transfiguration Cathedral of Odessa heavily damaged by Russian shelling on 23 July 2023.
On 2 October 2023, Ukraine and Italy signed an agreement to repair the Transfiguration Cathedral.
In November, heavy rains flooded the cathedral, and urgent conservation work of the roof was started by the Odessa Diocese. It began to dismantle the wreckage and remove the damaged copper sheets of the roof almost immediately after the missile strike. A Facebook video of Father Miroslav from the roof of the Cathedral shows that work was already underway on 10 August 2023, on the 19th day after the missile strike.
In early February 2024, an agreement was signed between Italy and UNESCO on the allocation of funds, according to the Odessa City Council. The Italian government delegation was chaired by Davide La Cecilia, Special Envoy for the Reconstruction and Strengthening of Ukraine’s Resilience.
Reconstruction to be based on a tripartite Memorandum and under a Supervisory Board
The mayor’s office of Odesa then said that the plans were to sign a tripartite Memorandum of Cooperation on the Reconstruction of Odessa (Italy – Ukraine – UNESCO), as well as separately one between Italy and Ukraine, where the areas of cooperation would be marked.
To perform this restoration work, a Supervisory Board was to be created, which would include all parties to the tripartite Memorandum, as well as strategic, technical and scientific committees. The latter, in particular, was to include scientists from the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, the Milan Triennial Museum, and the National Museum of Modern Art and Architecture in Rome.
In a previous article, Human Rights Without Frontiers stressed that it should be wise for the Ukrainian side to include Prof. Meshcheriakov in the Supervisory Board as his name is closely connected with the history of the reconstruction of the Odessa Cathedral, which was completely destroyed during Stalin’s time. Ph.D. Arch., Associate Professor, Meshcheriakov is a member of the Ukrainian Committee of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), Chairman of the Odessa regional branch of the Architectural Chamber of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine, forensic expert of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Research Fellow on the British Academy’s Researchers at Risk Programme, and Visiting Scholar at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of two monographs and more than seventy scientific publications, articles, theses in the field of architecture and protection of cultural heritage.
Under Meshcheriakov’s leadership, a group of architects in 1999 was the laureate of the national call for projects for the reconstruction of the Odessa Cathedral, which was rebuilt in 2000–2010 on the basis of his project. He was then awarded the State Prize of Ukraine in the field of architecture for the reconstruction of the Odessa Cathedral. He is also the author of a book on this topic.
The services of Meshcheriakov as an external consultant were recently hired by the UNESCO for a period of two months.
Too late as usual with the West and… nothing from the UNESCO
A few days ago, on 7 July, Gennadiy Trukhanov, the mayor of Odesa, spoke with correspondents of the press agency Ukrinform and was quoted as saying:
“We met several times with representatives of Italy and UNESCO, and I noticed that our meetings were pleasant, but unproductive, because we have already rebuilt almost the entire roof of the church with the funds of the Diocese, and we are still waiting for that money from UNESCO.
Italy, for its part, transferred the funds only in the spring, but UNESCO cannot transfer the money directly to the Cathedral without prior expert studies and transparent procedures for the selection of contractors. Therefore, we were waiting for UNESCO experts, research, scanning and documentation of the destruction and so on. I asked: give this money, they will at least buy a brick with it – but UNESCO does not work like that. At this pace, we will rebuild the temple by our own efforts.”
The mayor asked UNESCO to record these works and allocate funds for them, which could be used to continue the reconstruction but he was answered that in Italy and in UNESCO they cannot give money for already completed work “because there are procedures and their legislation.”
In short, if the ordinary Ukrainian citizens had not financially contributed to the urgent preservation of the Cathedral before the winter, the damage would have been much more severe, more costly and probably more irreparable. We can imagine how difficult it was for the Odessa diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and Father Miroslav (Miroslav Vdodovitch), the rector of the cathedral, to collect enough small donations from the population, weakened and impoverished by the war, to save the cathedral’s treasures.
In summary, UNESCO’s bureaucracy is too slow, and therefore unable, to face emergency situations in Ukraine.
In cases of sudden disasters, the Red Cross has the capacity to intervene immediately on the ground, bypassing any heavy and burdensome international bureaucracy to save lives. As long as there is no such “Red Cross type” scheme in UNESCO, countries willing to help Odesa should avoid channeling their financial assistance through this institution and privilege direct legal agreements with the local relevant authorities.
Footnotes
(*) The Belgian author of the article has been over a dozen times in Odesa before February 2022 and has regularly visited the Orthodox Cathedral where is the first burial place of the corpse of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Gregory V (1746 – 1821) killed on orders of the Sultan and secretly transported by Greek sailors to Odesa. Much later, his corpse was transferred to and buried in the Orthodox Cathedral of Athens.
(**) Some UNESCO’s visits
29.07.2023 – Representatives of UNESCO’s mission.
07.09.2023 – Ambassador of Italy to Ukraine, Consul of Italy in Odesa, representatives of the Italian government, Italian specialists in the restoration of cultural heritage and the entire UNESCO apparatus present in Ukraine, headed by Chiara Bardeschi.
09.02.2024 – A big meeting with the Head of UNESCO in Ukraine, the Odesa delegation of the Italian delegation headed by the Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy for the reconstruction of Ukraine, Davide La Cecilia, representatives of the Italian Embassy.
23.05.2024 – UNESCO’s representatives
