Deputy Premier for Humanitarian Affairs Mykola Tomenko paid a working visit to various Shevchenko sites in Ukraine: the villages of Moryntsi, Shevchenkove, and Budyshche, located in Cherkasy oblast. He was accompanied by the governor of the oblast, Oleksandr Cherevko, the writer Dmytro Pavlychko, and the artist Ivan Marchuk.
In a telephone interview with Liudmyla Shevchenko, manager of the Shevchenko Homeland Cultural Preserve, The Day asked if the top-level visit had led to any results. The Day has been a volunteer curator of the museum complex that includes Moryntsi, Shevchenkove, and Budyshche. Under the Soviets, Shevchenkove was the site of a literary-memorial museum that in 1992 was converted into the State Historical and Cultural Preserve “Batkivshchyna Tarasa Shevchenka” (Taras Shevchenko’s Homeland), incorporating three places connected with the poet’s birth, childhood, and youth. In 2003 The Day was among the first newspapers to write about the social problems confronting Moryntsi, Shevchenkove, and Budyshche. Despite the general reverence for the Kobzar, these villages had no gas and fresh water supplies. Shevchenkove didn’t even have a normal grade school. Liudmyla Shevchenko revealed this when she visited The Day, noting that every year some 22,000 people visit the preserve. The figure is even higher during jubilee years, but there is still no hotel or even road signs. Visitors must be provided with accommodations, so that the town can become a true Shevchenko shrine embodying the cultural grandeur of the Ukrainian nation.
The Day dispatched a reporter to Moryntsi and Shevchenkove. He observed the conditions in which the people are living and their children studying, and met with schoolteachers and students, to whom he distributed copies of the books Ukraine Incognita and Dvi Rusi from our newspaper’s Library Series. After a series of articles appeared on Shevchenko’s birthplace, the newspaper received thank-you letters from the poet’s countrymen, but not a word from the bureaucrats, although Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn and President Kuchma ended up visiting the cultural preserve some time later.
Last year, the long-overdue construction of a primary school was completed in Shevchenkove, but it still has no sewage and central heating, just gas. The classrooms were hard to heat with coal, so the children had to sit at their desks wearing coats or windbreakers. The large-scale construction project was in debt by more than 200,000 hryvnias, still owed to the builders and suppliers of materials in Zvenyhorodka, Cherkasy oblast. The grade school in Moryntsi doesn’t have any central heating either, because there is no boiler room. They also wanted to build a new school. A foundation was laid and walls were put up, but then the local authorities decided to renovate the old building rather than give themselves another headache with a new project that could last for years. The boiler room of the house-museum in Shevchenkove still has to be connected to the gas pipeline.
Mykola Tomenko told The Day that he would “undertake to resolve these important tasks. The restoration of the Shevchenko sites will be among the priorities of this government’s humanitarian policy.” Liudmyla Shevchenko said that the number-one task is to separate the National Preserve in Kaniv from Shevchenko’s Homeland, because the latter actually ceased to exist after it downgraded to a branch; its bank accounts have been frozen. The two institutions were merged by a cabinet resolution last September, whereupon the museum complex in Moryntsi, Shevchenkove, and Budyshche was transferred from the local to the central budget. National museum status, pending since 2002, was finally granted, although this fact does not figure in any statutory documents. After meeting with the deputy premier, Liudmyla Shevchenko is sure that the problem will be solved in the nearest future, maybe even before March 9. There is reason for this enthusiasm, as Mykola Tomenko says that he “called a meeting on this subject the very next day and drafted a resolution stating that the preserve must be reinstated as a legal entity with national status.”
The museum complex still faces many problems. Owing to lack of funds, the management hasn’t been able to obtain a deed for the land for the past 12 years. This document would certify that Shevchenko’s Homeland is the legal owner of the land, which accommodates various historical and architectural relics. Officially, this registration costs over 20,000 hryvnias. Another problem is the construction of a building for the administration staff of the Moryntsi memorial. The incredibly dedicated employees have been working outdoors for the past decade. Until recently, the manager of the museum complex had to make do without a computer and was therefore unable to establish contact with the world’s leading museums. She hopes that the administration building will have an exhibition hall where items could be exchanged within the complex itself, among museums in Cherkasy oblast and elsewhere in Ukraine and the world, and where works by domestic artists could be exhibited. “I think that writers and artists would also visit, given adequate accommodations,” Liudmyla Shevchenko said when she visited The Day in January 2003.
Commenting further, Mykola Tomenko said, “We’ve agreed with Oleksandr Cherevko, the head of the regional administration, that the bulk of work on the premises for the museum staff will be completed by March 9. These are the short-term priorities. However, there are other outstanding matters, like restoring the village’s original name, Kerelivka (renamed Shevchenkove in 1929 — Ed.). The strategic plans will take at least five years to implement. By this I mean the attempt to unite Trakhtemyriv, Kaniv, Moryntsi, Shevchenkove, and Budyshche into a single complex. I want people who come to visit Shevchenko sites to start by exploring Shevchenko’s Homeland, the place of his birth, where the poetic genius first began learning about the surrounding world and where he made his first drawings. His spirit and energy are still alive there. After that, visitors should be taken to Kaniv to pay their respects at his gravesite on top of Chernecha Hill. We’ll begin by expanding the infrastructure from this preserve. In fact, this so-called historical triangle doesn’t have a single place where people can buy coffee or tea, let alone hot meals, and forget about hotel accommodations.” Asked about funding, the deputy premier replied, “We will be using the principle of multilevel funding — in other words, contributions from the budget of the region where a given project is being carried out, from private business and investments, and finally from the central budget.”
This first and, in a way, symbolic visit of the newly appointed minister and other government officials is being closely followed by the general public. Their attitude to Ukraine’s national shrines is a kind of test that will show whether these dignitaries are suitable for the people of this country. Time will show whether these trips are productive.
