On September 19 UNESCO General Director Koichiro Matsuura attended a sitting of the Ukrainian National Commission on UNESCO to discuss Ukraine’s cooperation in the main venues such as education, culture, science, and information.
Anatoly Orel, head of the Presidential Administration’s foreign policy department and commission chairman, told Interfax-Ukraine that over the past five years this country has received $4 million worth of direct subsidies alone from UNESCO and other international sources involved in its programs. This year $300,000 will be allocated for such programs in Ukraine, including the second phase of the Ukrainian-German project to save the Dnister River’s ecosystem, UNESCO technological assistance in the preservation of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra National Historical and Architectural Preserve, as well as in publishing journals and holding conferences.
There is yet another important aspect to Mr. Matsuura’s current visit (left in photo). Ukraine has submitted documents for the inclusion of certain historical and cultural projects in the UNESCO World Heritage List, among them Sofiyivka Park in Uman, one in Kamyanets- Podilsky (tentative), nature preserves in Kaniv and Karadah in the Crimea, and the Chalk Mountains in Luhansk oblast. The UNESCO list already includes such Ukrainian memorial sites such as St. Sophia’s Cathedral, Kyiv Pechersk Lavra Monastery of the Caves, Lviv’s historic center as well as the Black Sea, Askaniya Nova, Carpathian, and Danube Estuary Biosphere Preserves.
