Italy will help restore Odessa’s Orthodox cathedral, badly damaged during a Russian attack, making use of its restoration tradition and honoring cultural ties with Ukraine, the government of Giorgia Meloni announced Friday.
In a statement issued this Friday by Palacio Chigi, the Italian government reveals that it involved “two of the most authoritative Italian cultural institutions, the Milan Triennale (art and design museum) and the Rome Maxxi (national museum of 19th century art). ), with the aim of bringing together the best economic, technical and cultural energies capable of contributing to the restoration of the Transfiguration Cathedral”, located in the historic center of Odessa, in southern Ukraine.
The Executive of Rome justifies its intervention “in memory of a long and rich history of exchanges between Odessa and Italian culture, which led Italian architects to design the most representative plans and buildings of the city at the end of the 18th century.”
“The tradition of Italian restoration schools, understood as university departments, professional institutes, workshops and laboratories, is now available for a project to recover and enhance walls and frescoes damaged by Russian bombs, thus marking an ancient friendship between two towns and an effective rebirth of the city,” the statement concluded.
On the night of July 23, shelling by Russian forces heavily damaged the large Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration, founded in 1794 and rebuilt in 2005 after its destruction by the then-Soviet Union in 1936.
The Kremlin (Russian Presidency) denied having bombed the cathedral, assuring that the destruction was caused by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles, fired to intercept the Russian missiles that fell on the city.
Earlier this week, the director of the office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) in Ukraine, Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi, said, after a mission of the organization to the city, that the cathedral suffered “more damage than initially estimated” after Kiev said the temple’s altar was completely destroyed and the building’s supporting structure damaged.
A major port on the Black Sea, Odessa, whose historic center was listed earlier this year by Unesco as a World Heritage Site, has been the target of several attacks by Russia, with Russian forces targeting export terminals in particular. grain, but also attacking civilian infrastructure. and monuments.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: TSF
