The former general director of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve Maksym Ostapenko denied the statement of Deputy Minister of Culture Serhiy Belyaev that in 2024 the state allocated 650 million hryvnias for the restoration and support of the reserve.
He said this in an interview with Babel.
"About 650 million is a lie, about 21 architectural monuments is true. We have a total underfunding. The reserve fund in 2024 was 260 million hryvnias. The Accounting Chamber audited us for the period 2020-2023 and published a report that the Lavra was given less than 10% of what was needed for repairs and restoration," Ostapenko said.
Serhiy Belyaev also said that last year the state allocated 17 million hryvnias to the reserve for restoration, but the Lavra used only six million hryvnias and returned 11 million hryvnias to the budget. Ostapenko explained this situation by saying that the money was only credited to the accounts in December 2024, so it was "impossible to use it effectively".
"At the end of the year, I ran to Shornikov, persuading him to transfer money from the restoration of one monument to another: from the repair of the Flavian Library, because there is still a long way to go to repair it, to the repair of the Kushnyk Tower. If the Ministry had done this, we would have completely repaired it. But that was all we could do to fix the roof," the former director general added.
According to him, the money is still in the Ministryʼs accounts, and it has not yet held meetings with the heads of national institutions regarding them and the restoration of cultural heritage this year.
At the same time, in 2025, the Ministry of Culture had not yet allocated money for the restoration of the Lavra. The funds were given for salaries, utilities and security, as well as 2.5 million hryvnias for the purchase of materials for current repairs. For example, the restoration of one cross (one that was bent at the Church of All Saints) costs 600 thousand hryvnias.
Maksym Ostapenko believes that the chief architect of the Lavra Yakiv Dikhtyar has been "actually sabotaging the restoration throughout his years of work, and is now collaborating with Shornikov", and suggests that Dikhtyar is involved in his dismissal.
"He has no initiative to attract extrabudgetary funds and systematic restoration work. This is his direct responsibility as the chief architect. He does everything to suspend any processes. I call this sabotage. He delays restoration work, endlessly reworks architectural projects for budget money," Ostapenko added.
And he noted that in 20 years, the only object in the Lavra that has been put into operation after restoration is the Church of the Savior on Berestov, because the restoration was financed by benefactors. Other restorations have not yet been completed, in particular because changes to the architectural design regularly appear.
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