Ten Ukrainian museum professionals completed an internship in Paris.

Ten Ukrainian museum professionals completed an internship in Paris.

As part of an international professional exchange program, ten Ukrainian museum workers and collection keepers from Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, and Poltava gained practical experience protecting the cultural heritage of France, Lebanon, and Switzerland. They also studied evacuation protocols and the preservation of collections in conditions of military aggression and other emergencies.

Among the group was Polina Petrashyna, head of the restoration department at the Khortytsia National Reserve, who is also a colleague of ours.

Over the course of five days, the group explored a wide range of issues, including the rules for packaging collections and maintaining electronic registers of museum monuments, as well as international law in the field of culture and heritage, and the challenges of combating the illicit trafficking of heritage objects.

The highlight of the internship was the practical exercise on evacuating museum objects in critical conditions (according to the scenario – a fire), which took place at the Reims Museum with real exhibits.

This internship for Ukrainian museum professionals was made possible by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications, the French Ministry of Culture (Ministère de la Culture), the French Ministry of Defense, the French Embassy, the French Institute in Ukraine, the Blue Shield France, the ALIPH Foundation, the Ukrainian Institute in France (Institut français d’Ukraine), the Louvre Museum, and the Center for Research and Restoration of French Museums.

The Khortytsia National Reserve expressed gratitude to all the organizers for providing the opportunity to gain new, invaluable knowledge and skills in cultural heritage preservation.