LEGO tribute to «Nikolaevskii Vaniok»: A symbol of Ukrainian resistance and hope

Mykolaiv designer Oleksandr Yermolaev, who created a number of landmarks of the city from LEGO bricks, showed another work — the minifigure «Nikolaevskii Vaniok».

He told about this on his Instagram page.

«The world sees only what is shown in the news, but you and I know that not all of our Heroes «wear raincoats». It is to such people that I want to dedicate a series of mini-models to at least somehow thank them for their invaluable work,» the designer wrote.

Oleksandr Yermolaev said that he started a series of mini-models precisely with «Nikolaevskii Vaniok», because he became «a symbol of the partisan movement and a real guardian angel for many Ukrainians».

«The Anonymous Hero who appeared in Telegram at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia to coordinate the resistance movement in the South of Ukraine. It is not known who is hiding under the yellow-blue hood, but this does not prevent hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians from trusting him more than official sources, and the occupiers from hating him with fierce hatred,» he said.

Lego minifigure «Nikolaevskii Vaniok». Screenshot from Oleksandr Ermolayev's Instagram

He also added that among Vaniok's main superpowers is the ability to quickly inform the civilian population, track the movement of enemy air targets over the whole of Ukraine, as well as gather information about the occupiers and collaborators.

«In addition, Vaniok enjoys considerable authority among the mysterious «unknown sheikhs», with the help of which he quite quickly collects funds for certain needs of our defenders,» Oleksandr Yermolaev added.

We will remind you that the list of the most popular Telegram channels in Mykolaiv was headed by the anonymous «Nikolaevskii Vaniok».

Earlier, we wrote that the Telegram channel was created on April 17, 2022, posts in it are published in Russian. According to the data of the TGStat resource, the average reach of one publication is 591.8 thousand people. During the monitoring period, from July 10 to 14, 2023, 107 posts appeared in the «Nikolaevskii Vaniok» Telegram channel.

Mostly, these are short messages about possible attacks of the Russian army on Ukrainian cities. Such posts are often accompanied by information about what kind of weapons Russia is using and which cities are under threat. In fact, the target audience of the channel is not only residents of Mykolaiv and the region, but also the whole of Ukraine.