There is a museum in Kyiv that holds tens of thousands of unique artifacts from the Chornobyl zone. However, a TPP is located nearby, and Russia is near Ukraine. A report about the collection under threat of destruction

1

Anastasiaʼs morning begins with the news — if the Russians hit the Darnytska TPP at night, it means that their building was probably damaged too.

Then she calls her boss and, with her colleague Olha Bonk, goes to the “Epicenter” to get the wrap, tape, nails, and staplers. Everything is bought with the personal money of the Сenter director Rostyslav Omelyashka.

Several times Anastasia and Olha chipped in apiece for the wrap and tape. Anastasia explains that it is inexpensive and state institutions are very slow, and no one will give the necessary money quickly.

In the storage facility, the two of them are patching up what was broken by the Russian strikes. Previously, two more men worked with them, and there were men in the archaeological department. Anastasia recalls that there were more hands, and it was more fun to work.

Now all of them serve in the army, so they have to cover the broken windows with film together. Last year, construction workers from the Central Enterprise for Radioactive Waste Processing in Chornobyl helped to cover the windows with OSB-boards. New explosions have knocked out most of them, and the survivors one are being spoiled by moisture — the boards bend and drag the frames with them.

There were only scraps of the grid ceiling left in the building.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

The windows in the halls of the storage facility were broken out along with the frames.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

In the restoration room, you have to watch out so that the former grid ceiling doesnʼt fall on your head. Its fragments and lamps hang on wires.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Anastasia leads us through the damaged halls of the storage facility. In one of the rooms we notice a humidifier and air conditioning.

“These are what really needed here now,” we joke. After the hit, the room had almost no windows left, so it was as cold and damp as outside. Glass creaked underfoot, broken frames lay around, water dripped somewhere.

There were still pieces of the grid ceiling, and lamps hung on wires, so you had to look up to make sure nothing fell on your head. The last explosion was so powerful that a large crack went through the wall, and a massive rack of exhibits fell onto the next one.

Anastasia realized that she needed to prepare for new attacks as soon as she read in the media: the Darnytsky TPP is being prepared for launch. The workers already knew that the plant was being repaired after the attacks last winter — they heard noise from there, but those who had common sense, were silent [about it].

Anastasia is measuring the windows so that new OSB-boards can be sent for the storage facility.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

The climate inside is like outside, October 19, 2026. The temperature is +14.2 °C, and the humidity is 82%.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

She calls last winter the most difficult time of her work here. Before that, windows would only occasionally break, but then flooding began due to damage to the ceiling. One week, there were two strikes in a row, and she had to work in -20°C and sweep snow off the exhibits (some of them had three types of mold).

At the same time, we had to prepare an exhibition for the 40th anniversary of the disaster, which was shown in April-May at the Ivan Honchar Museum. The order came from the State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management, to which the Center and the museum are subordinate.

According to Anastasia, the agency did not fully understand the conditions in which museum workers work, but they pushed them to meet deadlines. Exhibits for the exhibition had to be selected in unheated halls, where they were swept away by snow.

After the rains, the exhibits are covered with mold. Some of them had three types of mold, spring 2024.

Особистий архів Анастасії Панкової

Last winter, snow had to be cleared from the exhibits, on February 17, 2026.

Особистий архів Анастасії Панкової

A huge collection needs to be saved. The center stores 40 000 ethnographic and 20 000 archaeological materials, as well as over 228 000 archival documents from the Chornobyl zone and other areas of Polissia. Most of them are stored here, near the TPP. Some of them were managed to be transported to the Center’s office at the Institute of Electrodynamics in “Shulyavka”, but there is no more free space there.

Anastasia jokes that over the years of work, they have learned the best way “to play Lego” — to pack things twice as tightly as an ordinary person could. Part of the collection remains in Chornobyl. There is an exhibition “Memory of the Fatherland” there, which is now visited mainly by military personnel and zone workers — after 2022, others simply will not be able to get there.

Anastasia says that the collection has already “collected bingo” — the exhibits in Chornobyl survived the Russian occupation, and those that remained in Kyiv have been under constant attack.

The Center has been collecting them since 1994, and hundreds of scientists have joined the expeditions during this time. We talk to the founder and director of the Center Rostyslav Omelyashko about how this collection came about and why its main part ended up near the TPP.

There are many items in the storage room whose purpose you canʼt figure out without help. This is a bee drinker with a shallow bottom so the flyers donʼt drown.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Halo (or linen smoother) — glass balls for ironing. Two people would stretch the fabric, place the ball in the middle, and roll it over with movements.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

There are plenty of beautifully painted chests in the museum — Anastasia says the director is particularly fond of them. Because of their size, it is especially difficult to find a place for them and transport them.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

2

The history of the Center began in 1989.

At that time, a young teacher Rostyslav Omelyashko was writing a dissertation on Ukrainian song folklore and collected more than 30 000 songs for it. But in the place of Polissia on his ethnographic map, a large white spot remained, which almost coincided with the map of radioactive contamination.

It was about 4 125 km² of the exclusion zone and unconditional resettlement and another 23.5 000 km² of the guaranteed voluntary resettlement zone. So Chornobyl became the main topic of Omelyashkoʼs work, and his entire subsequent life.

Since 1994, scientists led by Omelyashko began to go on comprehensive ethnographic expeditions from the Ministry of Chornobyl. Over the next decades, about 300 researchers from various institutes joined them. However, almost no one wanted to go to the most dangerous 30-kilometer exclusion zone. Only Omelyashkoʼs groups, for which he gathered volunteers from all over Ukraine, went there.

In 1995, Lina Kostenko joined one of these expeditions, and remained a regular participant for more than ten years. She collected materials about the life of the "dead villages", documented abandoned houses, and talked to the [local] self-settlers.

In total, the Center conducted more than 170 expeditions.

Rostyslav Omelyashko and Lina Kostenko in "dubok" camouflage. Until 2022, scientists always get to the exclusion zone in "dubok", but after the start of a full-scale war, this practice was canceled.

Only Omelyashkoʼs groups went to the exclusion zone on the expedition. He recruited volunteers from all over Ukraine. In the pic, Omelyashko is in the third row, first from the left.

For over ten years, Lina Kostenko was a regular participant in expeditions to the zone. The Chornobyl theme formed the basis of several of her works.

In 2011, the Verkhovna Rada decided to create the State Museum-Archive of Folk Culture of Ukrainian Polissia on the basis of the Center. The Cabinet of Ministers recommended finding a modern, equipped premises for it, and together with the Kyiv city and regional administrations, to allocate a plot of land.

The concept of the museum, which formed the basis of the resolution, was signed by seven academicians of the National Academy of Sciences, the honorary president of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Vyacheslav Bryukhovetsky, and Lina Kostenko.

However, the decision remained [only] on paper — formally the museum exists, but after 15 years it still does not have its own building in Kyiv. In the same year, the funds also lost the premises where they were stored. The building on the balance sheet of the Ministry of Emergency Situations was demolished to build a high-rise building in its place.

Omelyashko recalls that during the move, the ministry took care of many things, but not the cultural heritage. The Center looked for a new premises it by its own, and it took half a year. Omelyashko even turned to the Dovzhenko film studio, but they asked what benefit they would get from it. We joke that after the recent Russian strikes, it is already difficult to say where it would be safer — at the film studio or here (near the TPP).

Instead, the Institute of Electrodynamics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine helped. It allowed the funds to be placed in the building on its balance sheet. Omelyashko calls the management and employees of the institute true patriots, they understood what the Center was doing and why the collection needed to be preserved.

Even before the full-scale war, the ceiling here was leaking in places, but these were local problems. And the TPP a few meters away did not seem like a threat [at all] at the time.

3

The museum had several chances to get its own premises.

The first one appeared in 2006, even before the funds moved to a building near the thermal power plant. The Kyiv Department of Communal Property decided to transfer an abandoned school near the “Slavutych” metro station to the future museum.

According to Omelashko, one step was missing — the leadership of the Ministry of Emergencies had to come to an agreement with Leonid Chernovetsky, who had just become the mayor of Kyiv. But when deputy ministers Volodymyr Antonets and Anatoliy Vedmid came to him, Chernovetsky “would not let them in”. That was the end of it.

Then there were about 15 more building options, but the matter never reached the point of moving. The last time, before the full-scale war, the leadership tried to create an open-air museum in Chornobyl.

The investment project was presented and defended at the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources on February 23, 2022. The next day, Russia launched an offensive on Kyiv and in the first hours captured the Chornobyl nuclear power plant and the exclusion zone.

Olha Bonk unpacked a bee-tree wheel for us, which was used as a hive lifter. The side wheelman climbed a tree, fixed the wheel, threw a rope over it, and, turning it, lifted the hive towards him.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

A cresset and a fish trap for night fishing. In the cresset a fire is lit, fish are lured into the light and scooped up with a fish trap.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Anastasia shows how to work with a bit brace (like, yarn winder) — a device for winding yarn from balls onto bobbins on a loom.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Now the museum says that the search for a new location is hindered by confusion with subordination. After the disbandment of the Ministry of Emergencies, the Ministry of Environment took care of the exclusion zone.

Last year, it was attached to the Ministry of Economy, and the Chornobyl direction was transferred to the Ministry of Energy. Museum employees are skeptical about this. Usually, museums are subordinate to the Ministry of Culture, which at least has well-established procedures for evacuation and protection of exhibits.

“Not everything is perfect, but there is at least some help,” the Center explains. In their opinion, the non-core ministry does not always understand what the museum does and what value its collection has.

When the museum prepared an exhibition for the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster this year, the Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal was not there. Employees regret [about it], because that it was an opportunity to show him what the institution is, and for which one his ministry is now responsible now.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

This room used to be an exhibition with glass display cases for exhibits. Now there is no glass even in the windows.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Recently, the museum management was approached by two public organizations of people who became disabled due to the Chornobyl disaster with a proposal to create a full-fledged museum-archive on Nahirna Street in Kyiv’s Tatarka. There is already a kind of “Chornobyl complex” there: a temple in memory of the victims of the disaster, a mound with a cross, and a bell.

Rostyslav Omelyashko and his deputy Anatoliy Lazarenko developed an investment project, but it is again stuck between two ministries. As they say, the Ministry of Energy is not considering it because it does not understand what relation cultural heritage has to it. The Ministry of Culture is also refusing, because by law it is not responsible for Chornobyl issues.

A trap for catching crayfish. On the canvas on the right is a muzzle for a calf (made of a hedgehog).

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Interesting faces and horse heads were carved on bit brace (like, yarn winders). The museumʼs exhibition on "Shulyavka" has a bit brace with a face in which visitors recognize Putin. Anastasia and Olha joke: "Donʼt offend our exhibit."

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

The same situation applies to repairs. After the previous Russian strikes, the Center invited builders who estimated the work at approximately four million hryvnias. But the Ministry of Culture again replied — prepare a public investment project. The loop is closing [here].

The museumʼs leaders tell Olha Salo about this bureaucratic trap, who in September headed the newly created Coordination Center for the Evacuation of Endangered Collections and is now supposed to help save the museumʼs holdings. Salo likely learned about the storage facilityʼs problems from the same post as Babel, as users tagged her in the comments asking for help.

4

On September 4, 2026, the Ministry of Culture launched the Coordination Center for the Evacuation of Endangered Collections, which should become a means of coordination between museums, the Ministry of Culture, local authorities, experts, and evacuation sites.

Rostyslav Omelyashko and his deputy Anatoliy Lazarenko tell its head that they have already found three possible premises for the storage facility.

The first is the empty dining room of the Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University, the second is the building of the Press of Ukraine, and the third is the Exhibition Center. The museum leaders like the premises at the university the most.

For now, they only want one thing — for the rector Hryhoriy Lukyanenko to agree to meet with them and discuss a possible move. They add that the rectorʼs parents are from Polissia, so they hope that he will understand why it is important to save this collection.

As a budget institution, the Center cannot pay commercial rent, but is ready to pay for utilities. Omelyashko jokes that in the current building near the TPP, they also pay for electricity (which they donʼt actually have there).

In total, the museum needs about 2 000 m², the storage room near the TPP takes up 650 m² — heavy boxes with fragile exhibits have to be placed one on top of the other. The constant moisture makes the boxes soggy, and the things inside spoil.

Now the museum workers are looking for at least a temporary room where they can maintain a normal temperature and humidity. Olha Salo promises to contact the heads of institutions in the coming days who can help with the move.

Finding premises is only part of the problem. The museum lacks people who could transport the entire collection. This would require more than 15 KamAZ trucks, and only four museum curators work with sixty thousand exhibits, although there should be at least ten of them.

New employees almost never come here: the average salary before taxes is UAH 16.5 000. Young specialists without scientific experience and a degree receive even less. Rostyslav Omelyashko fears most of all that the collection will be divided between different storage facilities.

All these objects together recreate the cultural image of a lost territory. If they are transported to different museums and archives, the collection will lose its cultural and scientific uniqueness.

During the visit of Babel, part of the archives are being transported from the building due to flooding.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

Wooden bast shoes.

Dmytro Vaga / "Babel"

The director also does not want to take the collections far outside Kyiv, to the nearest suburb at most. The exhibits require constant care: they need to be processed, restored, and preserved.

If the collection is moved far away, Anastasia Pankova and Olha Bonk just will not be able to visit [its place] regularly. If they cannot find premises in Kyiv, some of the exhibits will have to be sent to an abandoned office building in Chornobyl. The largest items (such as boats and chests) will not fit there.

Anastasia is not even sure whether Chornobyl is safer, because there is constant news about Russian exercises in Belarus.

Olha Salo looks at the exhibits with interest, promises to help, and leaves. Rostyslav Omelyashko hopes that she and the Coordination Center will help contact the heads of institutions that can provide premises.For now, it remains to repair the stock storage near the TPP on her own.

“Just imagine — the state has been financing us to collect all this for 35 years. Although, when we did collect it, no one needs anything. The state does not know where it may be placed [now],” says the director.