The museum was established at the Faculty of History of Mariupol State University. It has become an important cultural and educational site bringing together students, professors, and citizens around the native land’s history.
Mariupol is not only a key port and a powerful industrial centre in Ukraine. This is a city with an ancient and interesting history dating back to the 16th century when Zaporizhzhia Cossacks began to settle here for winter. Since then, numerous eras have come and gone, and the Ukrainian city has also undergone changes. Mariupol State University took up the scholarly mission of researching and preserving the history of the region.
At the institution, more than 4,000 students attended classes in 25 distinct departments across 6 faculties. The Museum of History and Archaeology, which brought together students, instructors, and citizens, was established by the Faculty of History in 2016.
The museum exhibition, which included almost 500 items, was collected by students under the direction of Viacheslav Zabavin, an archaeological expedition head, and Svitlana Arabadzha, a senior lecturer in the historical disciplines department. The collection’s initial section showed how the university was founded. It included photographs, copies of the university’s international agreements, and awards given to professors and students. The second portion of the collection contained the findings of the 1997-founded MSU archaeological expedition, which discovered prehistoric amphorae, human skulls, and Paleolithic and Scythian household artefacts.
The museum also developed into a significant venue for meetings of the academic community of scientists, historians, and archaeologists. Additionally, conferences of the Docudays UA Human Rights media education film club, career guidance events for Mariupol schoolchildren, and consultations on history, archaeology, and local history were held there.
However, all of this ended with the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. For three months, Russian troops have been razing Mariupol to the ground. When the Russian military invasion of Donbas started in 2014, the city resisted and demonstrated that Mariupol was a Ukrainian city. However, the city was destroyed in 2022 by the Russians’ shelling from the air, the sea, and field artillery cannons. All buildings of Mariupol State University were also severely damaged. All the exhibits of the Museum of History and Archaeology, carefully collected by students and teachers, were lost in the fire caused by Russian shelling on April 18, 2022.
The museum’s collection demonstrated that these lands flourished, were full of life, and had a distinct history and unique culture long before the Russian Empire emerged with its endless conquest of foreign territories and brutal oppression of other nations.
From now on, the site that once held memories has turned into a memory itself.
Formerly Palace of Culture of the Azovstal plant. The building of the former Continental hotel (1887–1910).
A unique monastery complex of the XVI–XIX centuries with natural caves.
Historical buildings reflecting the Mariupol architecture of the late XIX and early XX centuries before the Bolshevik Revolution.
Donbas Arena is the home stadium of the Ukrainian ‘Shakhtar’ football club, which became the first of the ‘elite’ category in Ukraine and in all of Eastern Europe.
An ancient building of 1902 in the Northern Art Nouveau style, which comprised under its roof the works by respected Ukrainian landscape painters, as well as world-famous marine and realist artists.
Invaluable monumental artworks, created by a group of Ukrainian monumentalists led by Alla Horska, a dissident artist and one of the Sixtiers movement’s founders. These panels incorporated elements of Ukrainian folk tradition, contemporary world trends, and Soviet art.
Formerly prospering trade and then a metallurgical centre of Ukraine that has become the symbol of the bloody Russian invasion of Ukraine and the genocide committed by the Russian army and government.
The only church in the world entirely decorated with Petrykivka paintings, an ancient style of folk Ukrainian decorative painting included in the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.
The manor of Mariupol City Council’s mayor, having more than 150 years of history behind. Its architecture incorporated elements of the Stalinist Empire, Neoclassicism, and Baroque.
One of the oldest and largest Ukrainian museums, which collection comprised over 180 thousand exhibits, including the monuments and artefacts of world importance.
One of the biggest steam mills in the German Mennonite colony that existed in the Donetsk region at the turn of the 20th century. Built in 1903, this mill had been feeding people of New York and all of its suburbs for decades.
The central church of the Sviatohirsk Lavra’s convent, erected in the neoclassical style with baroque elements in 2005 in the site of a stone church of 19th century dismantled by the Bolsheviks.
The house was built in the constructivist style in 1929. It has been the centre of the city’s creative life for almost a hundred years.
Former State Bank’s building, constructed at the turn of the 20th century. In 2019, this site housed the city library, which history began back in 1904. An intellectual and educational centre of the city.
A two-storey manor in the classical style with a neo-Gothic tower, built in Mariupol 125 years ago. The state was a property of respected doctors.
Part of the Sviatohirsk Lavra. All the skete’s buildings are made of massive pine trunks. The All Saints Church, the main skete’s sanctuary, used to be the biggest wooden church in Ukraine.
The Azovstal plant in Mariupol was one of the largest iron and steel producers in Europe. In 2022 it became a symbol of resistance to brutal Russian aggression and the incredible courage of Ukrainian fighters.
Educational institution with more than 140 years of history where many generations of Mariupol citizens studied.
Center of spiritual life of Muslims of Donetsk region.
Two buildings are a monument to an entire era. They were the last buildings in Mariupol designed in the Stalinist Neoclassicism style.
One of the oldest theatres in the Left-bank Ukraine.
The mosque was built in 2007 on the site of a mosque built in 1906 and destroyed by the Bolsheviks in 1936.
St. Demetrius Church dedicated to the holy martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki is one of the oldest in the region.