Mariupol was once a growing cultural mecca of Ukraine, a flourishing port city on the north coast of the Sea of Azov.
Part of the city’s Museum of Local Lore was reduced to ashes, after shelling by Russian forces. Artefacts there were also reportedly looted.TASS/Sipa USARussian troops have reportedly stolen an estimated 2000 artefacts across the country, including Scythian gold in the city of Melitopol, a handwritten Torah scroll and a valuable gospel in Mariupol.
A collaboration between the Danish UNESCO National Commission, Blue Shield Denmark and Polycam, a leading 3D scanning application, the project encourages people in Ukraine to install the application, and use their mobile phones to scan nearby cultural sites and artefacts, creating a three-dimensional digital replica., capturing a detailed copy of the heritage object, before it’s too late.
The term cultural heritage tends to apply to items a community believes are important, but Mr la Cour Jensen employs a wide definition. “There are many architectural monuments of different eras, Jesuit churches, Catholic churches with large dungeons, monasteries, synagogues and houses, each of which has its own value and history,” he tells SBS Dateline.“When we lose our cultural heritage, we lose part of our soul.”
“For fleeing Ukrainians it will be crucial for them to have something to return to. Something familiar. Or at least to know that what they love can be reconstructed.” “There was data in cyberspace that could be downloaded and was used in the reconstruction,” Ms Gerner Nielsen says. “Places of worship are both usually important to people because it’s where you have your regular religious services but it’s also where people have major life events, it’s weddings, it’s funerals, it’s baptisms,” Dr Flexner tells SBS Dateline.
Mr Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, with the goal to “demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.” He said the Western-leaning neighbour was a constant threat to Russia’s ability to feel “safe, develop and exist.” “If you remove the history, the foundation of the society and the foundation of the identity, you will break them.”