Museums in Wartime: The Khanenko Museum’s Story of Resilience
The Khanenko Museum in Kyiv is more than a century old. Officially known as the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts, it houses Ukraine’s most important collections of European, Asian, and ancient art. The museum was founded in 1919 and is based on the extensive private collection of art patrons Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko.
Since the beginning of the modern Russian-Ukrainian war in February 2014, marked by Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, the Khanenko Museum has continued its work. Even after the conflict escalated dramatically on February 24, 2022, with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the museum has remained active, implementing projects, supporting its community, and continuing to develop.
Interview with Daria Sukhostavets, Senior Research Fellow and Communications Manager at the Khanenko Museum, Kyiv, Ukraine.
I met Darya in Tbilisi, Georgia, in December 2024 at the ICOM international conference. I was deeply moved and honored to hear her powerful presentation on the vital work the museum is carrying out during wartime.
The interview was conducted in September 2025.
After I asked Darya for an interview, Russia renewed its bombing of Kyiv, and I did not hear back from her for some time. There was a moment when I felt irresponsible for requesting an interview from someone who was mourning victims every day. But Ukrainian people are different. They find the strength to keep living amid, and Darya took the time to speak with me.
• How busy was the museum before the war?
During the Russian-Ukrainian war from 2014 to 2022, the museum continued to operate as usual. We maintained both a permanent exhibition and temporary projects, with about 1,000 objects from the museum’s collection of 25,000 items on display.
At that time, Kyiv was not under missile or drone attacks, and the airspace remained open for civilian flights. However, active fighting continued in eastern Ukraine. We worked with colleagues from frontline areas and developed programs for internally displaced people from the occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea.
Until 2022, the museum organized about three to four temporary exhibitions each year and hosted approximately one international project every two to three years. The museum was lively and filled with visitors. Like everyone else, we had to close during the COVID-19 lockdowns, but our work continued online.
• Did the museum offer educational programs and school group visits?
Before the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, the museum welcomed three to four school groups each day, including on weekends. Nearly all visits were scheduled in advance. We offered about 10 special programs designed for different age groups.
For example, the museum had a “Cultural Maternity Leave” program for mothers with children aged 0 to 3, as well as subscription-based programs for schoolchildren of different ages. These programs gave children and teenagers the opportunity to study art history, participate in workshops, and develop their own projects at the museum.
Most programs were planned around school holidays. The museum also offered “Early Bird” tours led by volunteers on Saturday mornings, as well as research programs where participants could work with museum scholars to study the collection.
In addition, we provided internship opportunities for students in history, cultural studies, art history, and fine arts. We also organized themed holiday projects, concerts, and special guided tours. Most of the museum’s major initiatives focused on the permanent exhibition.
• How has the war affected the museum? What happened to the collections and exhibition halls?
On February 24, 2022, the museum team dismantled and secured the entire collection from the exhibition halls. Throughout March, during the Russian offensive on Kyiv, the team focused on conserving and safeguarding the collection.
Since then, the museum’s permanent exhibition has not returned to the galleries. For security reasons, we do not disclose the current location of the collection. We can share that some of our artifacts are now on display in exhibitions in Vilnius, Paris, Warsaw, and other European cities.
Author’s note: Khanenko Museum artifacts are currently on display at the Royal Castle in Warsaw and were previously exhibited at the Louver in Paris and the National Museum in Vilnius. A temporary exhibition of 37 works of European art from the Khanenko Museum’s collection was held at the Royal Castle in Warsaw from January to March 2025. Another exhibition, featuring ancient icons, was shown at the Louver in 2023, while Goya’s etchings were exhibited at the Vilnius Picture Gallery in 2023.
• What are the two perspectives on managing a museum during wartime?
As soon as Russian forces were pushed back from the outskirts of Kyiv, we began thinking about how to resume working with visitors. At that time, Kyiv’s population had greatly decreased: many people had joined the military, while many women and children had fled to western Ukraine.
Yet for those who stayed, support was essential. They needed a place where they could talk with others, gather, and feel cared for. More than half of our team had also left. Those of us who remained, together with the museum director, decided to mark International Museum Day.
Our researchers prepared a guided tour along the street and in the museum courtyard, keeping in mind the need to reach a shelter quickly if shelling resumed. The museum itself does not have a shelter; the nearest one is about a three-minute walk away.
About 20 people attended the tour. It was a cold and rainy May 18. At that time, we still did not allow visitors inside the museum, as safety protocols for responding to danger had not yet been established.
Later that summer, we reopened the museum courtyard and began offering guided tours of the building’s interiors. We spoke with visitors about local history: the story of the museum and the Khanenko family who founded it, as well as the museum’s experience during World War II.
At the same time, we listened carefully to the stories people shared with us: why they came to the museum, how they survived the occupation of the Kyiv region, and how they lived through the shelling of the city.
People needed a place where someone cared for them, where they could hear stories that offered comfort, and where they felt welcome and expected.
• How did the museum modify its resources and educational programs to meet this challenge?
We still cannot display our permanent collection because of the ongoing threat of destruction. The museum has already suffered damage after a missile strike hit a playground just 200 meters away. All the windows were shattered, the glass ceilings in the galleries collapsed, and part of the roof structure was damaged. The museum completed repairs from that attack only in 2025.
During the first year of the full-scale invasion, we began actively collaborating with contemporary artists. In September, the first exhibition, “Soldiers. Invasion,” by Kharkiv artist Oleg Kalashnik, opened.
We are currently working on two or three exhibition projects with contemporary Ukrainian and international artists, as well as several projects featuring items from our collection in museums around the world.
• Who is the museum open to now? What exhibitions and educational programs are available? How have visitor numbers and behavior changed during the war?
The museum is currently open during its regular hours. Our understanding of our work has changed significantly. Today, our main focus is openness and accessibility in every sense.
The year 2022 was difficult, not only emotionally but also physically, as most of our team was absent. We had to carry out not only our own responsibilities but also the duties of colleagues who were no longer there.
Since 2023, many new team members have joined us, and colleagues who had evacuated have returned. We now offer special subscription programs for different age groups, including schoolchildren. We also host approximately three to four exhibition projects each year.
“Our main criteria for selecting projects are that they must be relevant to the current moment, engaging and non-traumatizing for audiences, connected to us and created for us, developed in partnership with the museum, and aligned with our values. For contemporary artists, this often includes a residency at the museum.”
We also organize numerous partnership projects, concerts, and conferences. All projects are developed with the active involvement of the entire museum team.
Today, Kyiv’s population is roughly the same as it was before the full-scale invasion. The museum now receives the same number of visitors it had before the invasion, even though the permanent exhibition is not on display.
In addition to research, exhibitions, and visitor engagement, we are expanding into other areas of work. We began digitizing our collection during the COVID-19 pandemic and have continued this effort. Our goal is to digitize the entire collection and make it openly accessible.
For us, openness also means security. By making information about our collection items publicly available, we help protect them from potential theft by Russian forces. In any case, we would still be able to track and identify them.
• You mentioned that people need a place where they feel welcome and expected. Can we say that the museum serves as a form of art therapy during Ukraine’s most challenging times?
One of our main areas of focus now is continuing our work with temporarily displaced Ukrainians. We also actively collaborate with charitable foundations, civic organizations, military institutions, and hospitals to support the rehabilitation of both military personnel and civilians.
“This work goes beyond art therapy. It is about building a community where everyone can feel safe, welcomed, and supported.”
• What is a typical day at the museum like during wartime?
If we are lucky and have managed to sleep through the night, rather than spending seven hours sheltering from massive rocket and drone attacks, we arrive at the museum around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m.
During heavy attacks, air raid alerts can last longer, making it much harder to get to work after the all-clear. In those cases, the day might begin at 10:30 or even 11:00 a.m. — unless you are on duty and responsible for opening the museum at 8:30. Then there is no choice.
We may have a short morning meeting to discuss current tasks. At 10:30, the exhibition opens to visitors. Our education department begins leading tours, holding workshops, and running various public programs.
The curatorial teams are busy preparing upcoming exhibitions, coordinating with partners, and managing project logistics. In our museum, any staff member can become a curator — this is part of our horizontal approach.
Our digitization team is currently working on building a new database, so they are in constant contact with developers.
“ The museum is classified as critical infrastructure, so our electricity supply is maintained whenever possible, even after attacks on the power grid. This allows us to continue working without interruption. We also have EcoFlow batteries and solar panels to ensure a stable power supply.”
If there are no air raid alerts during the day, everything proceeds calmly. But when alerts occur, we must pause our work and go to the shelter. This usually means finishing tasks later in the day or in the evening.
• The entire world is waiting for this war to end. Have you imagined what life at the museum will be like after the war?
It will be different.
