15/06/2026
The Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Studio, one of the oldest film studios in Europe, was hit during a Russian attack on Kyiv last night.
The costume workshop and archive was destroyed, along with Ukraine’s largest and oldest collection of historical performance costumes for movies — around 100,000 costumes and more than three million garments, textiles, and accessories. An irreplaceable part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage is gone.
I worked in this costume department in 2016 as part of a film crew. Throughout my years in the Ukrainian film industry, until 2019, this archive was an essential part of my work. As a member of the art department, I worked closely with costumes, textiles, and accessories, spending countless hours in these collections, researching, selecting, and bringing history to life on screen.
Today, it is heartbreaking to see a place that shaped so much of my professional path damaged and destroyed. This loss is not only personal. It is a loss for Ukrainian culture, cinema, history, and memory.
And it is important to say clearly: every business relationship with Russia helps sustain the system that makes these attacks possible. By working with Russian businesses, you are helping finance crimes against people, culture, heritage, and the civilized world.
Today feels full of pain.
Photos: Evgeniy Maloletka, Tetyana Berezhna
EchoHistoricalTextile
