In Mykolaiv, a research excursion “What is Mykolaiv about? The Multiethnic South” was organized, dedicated to the multifaceted history of national communities that have shaped the city’s unique “European face” for centuries. Together with Ilya Khvorostyanyuk, a historian and research fellow at the Mykolaiv Regional Museum of Local Lore, we walked along the route through the city center, covering key spiritual and architectural centers of Mykolaiv.
Despite the usual perception of Mykolaiv exclusively as a “city of ships,” the tour participants had the opportunity to see another side of its identity — the city as a melting pot of cultures, where the destinies of Greeks, Germans, Jews, Bulgarians, Poles, Karaites, and other national communities intersected.
“This tour is not just a walk through the streets, but an attempt to decipher the cultural code of Mykolaiv. We sought to show how the energy of different peoples — from German restraint to Jewish ingenuity — laid the foundation of our city,” the organizers note.
During the walk, the participants stopped at such key points as: near the Lutheran church and the Catholic church, discussing the Western European influence on the architecture and religious life of the region; at the site of the former choral synagogue and Karaite kenas, which reveal little-known pages of the region’s Eastern and Jewish traditions; around the old “Jewish houses”, where the history of their first owners-entrepreneurs can still be read through the modern facades.
The research tour aroused considerable interest among the participants. In general, the hour and a half tour ended with a discussion of the contribution to the development of the city of ethnic communities who lived here and still live in Mykolaiv.
The event was organized by the MY ART Platform team together with the Mykolaiv Development Agency within the framework of the project “What is Mykolaiv about? The Polyethnic South” with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Kyiv-Ukraine Bureau. The initiative is aimed at rethinking local history and promoting the cultural diversity of the southern region of Ukraine.
Photo: MY ART Platform
