The ceiling in one of the galleries at the Vereshchahin Museum in Mykolaiv is to be repaired: the work will cost nearly ₴670,000.

A hall at the Vasyl Vereshchagin Mykolaiv Regional Art Museum, from which exhibits were removed due to the threat of Russian attacks. April 2024. Photo: NikVesti

The V. V. Vereshchahin Mykolaiv Regional Art Museum plans to renovate the ceiling in Hall No. 8. The cost of the work is estimated at 668,979 hryvnias.

This is reported by NikVesti, citing data from the Prozorro system.

The client is the Mykolaiv Regional Art Museum named after V. V. Vereshchagin, a municipal cultural institution. The contractor must complete all the work by 25 December inclusive.

According to the technical documentation, the contractor must remove 54 old fluorescent light fittings and over 259 square metres of old plaster from the ceiling. The contract also provides for the manual removal of lime paint from the mouldings.

Afterwards, the ceiling, covering an area of over 272 square metres, is to be fitted with a metal framework and lined with fire-resistant plasterboard sheets. The surface is to be plastered, filled and painted with water-based acrylic paint.

The electrical wiring in the hall will also be replaced — over 100 metres of copper power cable is to be laid. The dismantled light fittings will be replaced with 54 surface-mounted LED lights with a power rating of 21 W or more, as well as new switches and junction boxes.

The contractor is also required to remove around 8.8 tonnes of construction waste.

As a reminder, in 2022 the museum evacuated its exhibits. The collection was moved to a safe location due to the risk of damage or destruction. Museum staff removed the exhibits from the walls in the early days of the full-scale invasion — a process that took three days. At the time, the director did not disclose exactly where or in what quantities they were being stored, for security reasons.

Due to the war, the museum was unable to operate as usual for a long time. Some staff worked remotely, some remained at the museum, whilst others left for safer regions. At the same time, the museum maintained contact with its audience via social media — publishing archive material, videos and information about the collection.

In early February 2023, the museum resumed its exhibition activities and began welcoming visitors again. Throughout 2023, the police provided security for the museum’s cultural sites. The cost of this service amounted to over 1 million hryvnias.

In 2024, NikVesti reported that the museum was operating under specific wartime conditions: some of its own exhibits remained hidden, whilst exhibitions were organised, in particular, using works from private collectors.