An online museum launched on February 18 is seeking to make Ukraine’s cultural heritage accessible to a global audience, even as many of the original artifacts remain hidden for safety reasons amid the ongoing war.
The virtual exhibition, titled Our Land, Our Story: Crossroads of History, features 25 three-dimensional scans of historic objects.
Many of the physical items are currently stored in undisclosed secure locations to protect them from damage linked to the conflict.
The exhibition divides Ukraine into five regions and highlights significant artifacts from each area. Among them is a terracotta figure recovered from Snake Island, which was seized by Russian forces at the outset of the full-scale invasion before being retaken by Ukraine in the summer of 2022.
The scanning process involves capturing dozens of overlapping photographs from multiple angles under consistent lighting conditions.
Specialized software then compiles the images into a single, highly detailed 3D rendering.
Oleksandra Ivanova, a historian and archaeologist with the Ukrainian research organization Archaic, was among 32 specialists who traveled to Poland for training in 3D imaging.
She contributed to producing several of the scans now displayed in the virtual museum. Ivanova noted that even small artifacts can generate 3D image files running into hundreds of gigabytes, limiting the resolution available on the public website.
However, she said the original high-resolution files are already supporting international research efforts.
“They’re not coming to Ukraine, they’re just getting these files and then studying them and publishing articles,” she told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, adding that the exquisitely detailed 3-D images are “a useful tool in times of war when scientists from other countries are prohibited to come to Ukraine and it’s very dangerous to transport artifacts abroad.”
According to UNESCO, 39 Ukrainian museums and four archaeological sites have sustained damage since Russia’s invasion began.
Maria Lobanova, curator at the Odesa Archaeological Museum, has directly witnessed the risks facing the country’s cultural institutions. On July 20, 2023, she sheltered in her apartment bathroom as Russian missiles and drones targeted the port city. The next day, she arrived at the museum to find shattered windows and structural damage, including a cracked ceiling that later collapsed.
Lobanova said she volunteered for 3D imaging training because the war has underscored the vulnerability of cultural assets. “heritage can be lost or damaged at any moment.” She added that with Odesa viewed as a high-risk destination for foreign visitors and researchers, “I see how many unique objects remain invisible to the world.”
The virtual museum adds to a series of initiatives aimed at digitally preserving Ukraine’s heritage since the 2022 invasion. Volunteers and specialists have gathered terabytes of data through projects that include scanning state archives and even entire historic buildings. The Our Land project received funding from several partners, including the Iron Mountain Living Legacy Initiative, the U.S. Department of State Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, and Krakow’s Jagiellonian University. The initiative was carried out by Archaic in partnership with CyArk, a nonprofit organization that documents global heritage sites using 3D technology.
Despite the widespread storage of artifacts in secure locations, Lobanova said public interest in Ukrainian culture has grown during the war.
“I noticed that a lot of people want to come to the [Odesa] museum. They have become more talkative, they’re asking questions.” The phenomenon she says, is shared by other cultural institutions.
“It’s quite visible everywhere right now in Ukraine, not only museums, people also want to visit Ukrainian theaters, and listen to Ukrainian music, just to know more about their heritage,” she says.
