A few months before the outbreak of full-scale war, in October 2021, the Okhtyrka City Local History Museum celebrated its centennial. On the night of March 7-8, 2022, the center of the city of Okhtyrka in Sumy Oblast came under massive shelling.
One bomb hit the building of the city executive committee, which is located just across the street from the museum. Consequences: instead of the administrative building, there were ruins to the foundation; the museum was left without a roof and windows, the walls were covered with cracks.
The museum building is a local architectural monument built in the late nineteenth century. It is now in a state of disrepair. For Liudmyla Mishchenko, director of the Okhtyrka Local History Museum, the museum is not just a workplace. It is a whole life. She talks about how thousands of museum exhibits were saved, how museum personnel dismantled the rubble with their bare hands... The residents of Okhtyrka joined the rescue effort along with the emergency workers and museum staff.
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