On 21 October 2024 our team launched an open letter to UNESCO, which was signed by over 150 cultural figures in, from and for Odessa, requesting that decisions about Odessa’s UNESCO World Heritage are postponed until after the war. The letter highlighted concerns about the impact of these decisions on Odessa's unique cultural heritage and identity, advocating for public consultations and expert scrutiny before any irreversible changes are made. The appeal underscored the need for careful consideration of Odessa's historical significance and the preservation of its cosmopolitan values in the face of ongoing conflict.

Maison de l'UNESCO7 Pl. de FontenoyParis 75007, France
To Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO
Copies to: Prof Nikolay Nenov, Chair of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee Ms Berta de Sancristóbal, UNESCO Europe and North America, Head of Unit and Ms Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi, Head of UNESCO Desk in Ukraine Oleh Kiper, Head of the Odesa Regional Administration Gennadiy Trukhanov, Mayor of Odesa Odesa, 21 October 2024
Urgent appeal to UNESCO to request the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to defer the ill-timed decisions about Odesa's cultural heritage until the end of the war, when public consultations can take place.
Dear Ms Azoulay,
In January 2023, as Russian missiles and drones savaged Ukraine, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee designated the Historic Centre of the Ukrainian port city of Odesa as a World Heritage Site in Danger.
With Odesa’s emergency inscription, the international community pledged to defend the city’s exceptional heritage, its eclectic architectural ensemble as a vessel of its famously “diverse, multi-ethnic, multicultural, cosmopolitan” identity. As you observed at the site’s inauguration, Odesa has universal value as a melting pot of cultures, a polyphonic city. Its reputation extends far beyond Ukraine and far beyond Europe, because it is a world city, a cosmopolitan city, by history and by nature. Its outstanding universal value is owed to intermingled influences: Italian, Greek, Moldovan, Jewish and Ukrainian, but also French, Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, Russian and Polish.
Russia’s murderous attacks on Odesa have only intensified since, damaging at least 106 listed buildings.
But there is now a new threat that looms over the city’s heritage. This summer the regional administration earmarked 19 monuments for removal, while depriving others of protected status. Several of these are intrinsic to Odesa’s architectural ensemble in the heart of the UNESCO Protection Zone.
These decisions were reached with no public consultations and were discovered post factum by citizens in the media as a fait accompli. Their legal justification is the new Act (№ 3005-IX) “On the condemnation and prohibition of propaganda of Russian imperial policy in Ukraine and decolonization of toponymy,” whose stated aim is to “protect Ukraine’s cultural and informational space” by “liquidating symbols of Russian imperial politics.”
Much can be said about decolonising Ukraine, but when applied to Odesa, much of whose historic centre was built under Russian imperial rule (as observed by UNESCO), this programme of “liquidation” is a dangerously slippery slope. The rushed application of this new legislation, which leaves much scope for interpretive ambiguity, imperils swathes of Odesa’s World Heritage and its spirit of polyphonic cosmopolitanism. It has already led to the removal of names of some of the greatest Odesans from its streets. They include not only those who built and defended Odesa, but also those of opponents and victims of the Russian imperial and Soviet regimes. Among them are Scottish administrator Thomas Cobley who fought the plague in Odesa in 1812, Marshal Malinovsky who defended the city from Nazi troops, Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin who condemned the Soviet regime in his writings, Nobel nominee Konstantin Paustovsky who criticised the Soviet Revolution and was never even a member of the Communist Party, Alexander Pushkin who was exiled to Odesa for anti-tsarist activities, and Odesa’a most famous writer Isaac Babel who perished in Stalin’s purges.
Pushkin’s iconic statue, built in 1887-89 with funds collected by the people of Odesa, has already been earmarked for removal, while the 1863-statue of Prince Vorontsov, who played a decisive role in turning the city into a prosperous multiethnic port, was deprived of its protected status. The prelude in 2022 was the removal from the heart of historic Odesa of another iconic Monument to the Founders of Odesa. The target was the central statue of Russian Empress Catherine II, but with it the figures of Odesa’s Neapolitan, Dutch and Russian founders, sculpted with the help of Italian Leopoldo Menzione, were also removed.
A UNESCO Creative City of Literature now also stands to lose Babel’s statue, which was erected with money collected by the people of Odesa, but will now be removed alongside the names of several other Jewish writers: Eduard Bagritsky, Mikhail Zhvanetsky, and Ilya Ilf.
These people embody the cosmopolitan values you celebrated in your speech. Their removal from public space and cultural memory rejects the very rationale for protecting Odesa as a World Heritage Site.
By ratifying the World Heritage Convention, Ukraine committed not only to preserving its heritage for the world, but also to defending “the World Heritage values,” to which this heritage bears witness.
Russia’s barbarous war against Ukraine does not only place Ukraine’s World Heritage in danger of immediate annihilation. It also foists on it the cultural trauma that unleashes what Maria Böhmer, once-Chair of the World Heritage Committee, called “cultural cleansing,” which UNESCO has been up against in places like Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Spurious, high-handed dismantling of Odesa’s tangible and intangible World Heritage, including monuments that were built by and belong to its community, does not only rend holes in the city’s architectural canvas. It strikes out against Odesa’s cultural memory and its legendary identity as a haven of cosmopolitan freedom.
We write as patriots and advocates of Ukraine united in our concern for Ukraine’s future and for Odesa’s cultural heritage, which we see as the bedrock of its fragile social peace. We fear that reactive decisions about the country’s World Heritage may damage Ukraine’s democratic credentials and its reputation as a viable European state.
We agree with you that “what is essential – language, monuments, architecture, theatre, music, memory – must be defended even, and maybe especially, in the throes of war.” Poignantly aware of the trauma of war, we believe that any decisions about Odesa’s cultural heritage must be considered carefully via expert scrutiny, reasoned dialogue and genuinely open public debate. War against a vicious invader, when the country’s defence is paramount, has put all this, along with elections, of necessity on hold.
Hundreds of citizens have already petitioned the regional administration this summer to no avail.
This is why we ask you to make an urgent appeal to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at whose bidding Odesa was inscribed as a World Heritage Site, to halt this ill-timed dismantling of Odesa’s cultural heritage. Decisions about this must wait until a time amenable to due democratic process, which we hope will come soon after the war.
Sincerely yours,
Anastasia Piliavsky, anthropologist and political analyst, Reader in Anthropology and Politics at King’s College London, Odesa & CambridgeIlya Kaminsky, poet, essayist and author of Dancing in Odessa, Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Literature at Princeton University, Princeton USAMaya Dimerli, writer, literary translator and Head of the ‘Odesa UNESCO City of Literature’ programme, OdesaEugene Demenok, writer, art historian and Ambassador of Odesa in Prague, Odesa and PragueAntonina Poletti, Editor of The Odessa Journal, OdesaUgo Poletti, founder of The Odessa Journal and President of Rotary Club Odessa International, OdesaVitaly Oplachko, explorer, photographer and founder of the Odesa Free University Lectorium, OdesaAlexey Botvinov, Ukrainian pianist, Honored Artist of Ukraine and founder of the Odessa Classics Festival, Odesa & ZurichKlim Stepanov, sculptor and soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Odesa & the frontThomas de Waal, author and analyst, descendant of the Ephrussi family, LondonEdmund de Waal, artist, potter and author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes, descendant of the Ephrussi family, LondonNeal Ascherson, Scottish writer and journalist, author of Black Sea, LondonSir Christopher Clark, historian of Europe and the Cambridge Regius Professor of History, CambridgeBaron Maurice Glasman, English political theorist and Labour Life peer in the House of Lords, LondonMikhail Reva, artist, architect & Honored Artist of Ukraine, OdesaAdriano Sofri, journalist and writer, FlorenceAlexander Babich, historian of Odesa and Sergeant in the Ukrainian Armed forces, Odesa & the frontLidiya Babel, architect and daughter of Isaac Babel, TallahasseeSerhiy Bochechka, philologist and specialist in Ukrainian literature, Captain of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Kyiv and the frontOksana Lyniv, conductor, founder of Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, former conductor of the Odesa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, and current Music Director of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, BolognaDmytro Dokunov, veteran of the Russo-Ukrainian war, digital artist, founder of the Goloka Space Military Rehabilitation Centre, Odesa & SavranAndrii Murza, violinist, Founder and Artistic Director of the Odesa International Violin Competition, Faculty at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts, 1. Violin of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, DüsseldorfYurii Dikiy, Ukrainian pianist, Professor Emeritus at the Odesa National Academy of Music, and Head of the Oistrakh and Richter Mission, OdesaDame Caroline Humphrey, anthropologist of Eastern Europe, University of CambridgeVladislav Davidzon, American writer, founder and editor of The Odessa Review, New YorkValentin Piliavsky, architect, historian of Odesa and author of The Architects of Odessa, Boston USABorys Khersonsky, Ukrainian poet and psychologist, OdesaBoris Barsky, poet, dramaturgist, director of Maski Theatre & Honored Artist of Ukraine, OdesaSofia Dyak, historian, director of the Center for Urban History in Lviv, LvivAlexandr Onishchenko, theatre director and serving marine in the Ukrainian Navy, Odesa & the front Mikhail Poizner, scientist, historian, writer and Honored Transport Worker of Ukraine, OdesaOleg Suslov, Chief Editor of The Evening Odesa, OdesaAndrei Malaev-Babel, theatre director, Head of Acting at the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training and grandson of Isaac Babel, TallahasseeSabiha Çimen, photographer of the Black Sea at the Magnum Photo Agency, IstanbulCyrill Lipatov, art historian and curator at the Lviv Museums of Fine Art, Odesa & LvivPeter Culshaw, music writer, including about Ukrainian music and art, LondonYuri Boyko, Ukrainian photographer, including for the Ukrainian Institute of Preservation and Restoration in Odesa, OdesaJason Eskenazi, award-winning photographer of Eastern Europe, New YorkMikhail Golubev, Ukrainian chess Grandmaster and journalist, OdesaDavid Shearer, Thomas Muncy Keith Professor of History at the University of DelawareTaras Fedirko, anthropologist of Ukraine, Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, EdinburghPatrick Wack, acclaimed photographer, staff photographer for The Washington Post, ParisAlex Ulam, American journalist with Lviv roots, New YorkLeonid Shtekel, journalist and Chief Editor of Odesa Daily, OdesaDarya Koltsova, Ukrainian artist, OdesaMykhailo Dubynianskyi, Ukrainian publicist, KyivKostiantyn Skorkin, Ukrainian journalist, LuhanskIevgen Koshyn, Ukrainian film director, KyivIrina Yevsa, Ukrainian poet and translator, member of PEN and the Ukrainian Writer’s Union, KharkivMarina Sapritsky-Nahum, anthropologist at the London School of Economics and author of Jewish Odesa, LondonKonstantin Bliokh, composer, physicist and Laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology, Kharkiv and San Sebastian, SpainMaxim Rozenfeld, artist, architect, author and filmmaker, KharkivJohn Dunn, political philosopher and historian of European political thought, University of CambridgeVera Biletina, film critic and founder of the “Illusion” cinema club, KhersonOleg Kutskiy, internationally acclaimed photo artist, OdesaCarlo Ginzburg, Italian historian and microhistorian, BolognaVladislav Vodko, historian of Ukraine and lecturer in history at the South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University, OdesaJeremy Musson, British author, educator and architectural historian, LondonEva Neymann, Ukrainian filmmaker, director of the film “Privoz,” BerlinSteven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University, author of The Jews of Odessa, StanfordMarat Grinberg, Professor of Humanities at Reed College, author of The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf, Portland, USATchavdar Georgiev, Odesa-born writer and Emmy-award winning filmmaker, Los Angeles Pavlo Maiboroda, history teacher and founder of the “Pidpillya” free space, OdesaAnna Golubovska, Ukrainian photographer, OdesaKateryna Biletina, award-winning artist, portraitist of Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi, OdesaVladimir Tukmakov, Ukrainian chess Grandmaster, winner of the FIDE 100 Best Trainer Award, OdesaAngelo Bucarelli, artist and art curator, RomeEkaterina Luki, curator, art consultant, GFAA Art Liaison Committee Chair, contributor to Art & Museum Magazine, Odesa, London, New York & MilanNata Golovchenko, architect, painter, head of the NG Architects Studio, OdesaAlexander Kurlyand, member of the Transport Academy of Ukraine, OdesaRoman Morgenstern, corresponding member of the Transport Academy of Ukraine, OdesaDaniel Khalupsky, filmmaker and investment banker, New YorkHobart Earle, internationally acclaimed conductor, Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Odesa Philharmonic Orchestra, People's Artist of Ukraine, OdesaPhilipp Christoph Schmädeke, political scientist and Director of the German Science at Risk Emergency Office, BerlinAlberto Veronesi, conductor and President of the Committee for the Celebrations of Giacomo Puccini’s Centenary of the Italian Government, MilanMassimo Vassallo, Italian historian, specialist in Eastern Europe and Ukrainian history, CuneoIgor Pokrovskyi, Honored Journalist of Ukraine, CEO of the TV company Mediainform, artistic director of the International Festival Odesa Golden Violins, Odesa & ViennaNatalia Khokhlova-Pokrovski, journalist, Director of the TV company Mediainform, Odesa & ViennaHanna Lisova, Ukrainian stage director, Kharkiv and San Sebastian, SpainYuriy Romanenko, political commentator, broadcaster and Chief Editor of khvylya.net, KyivYuriy Tsurkan, artist, Odesa & BerlinMichael Löffler, director of OCCAM Labs and member of Rotary Club Odessa International, OdesaKatie Farris, poet, literary translator, Professor at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, PrincetonHeorhii Kasianov, historian of Ukraine, head of the Laboratory of International Memory Studies, Marie Curie-Sklodowska University, former head of the Department of Modern History and Politics at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv; Lublin, PolandMassimo Morelli, rector of the Luigi Boccherini Music Conservatory in Lucca, LuccaAnna Misiyk, historian of the cultural history of Odesa at the Odesa Literary Museum, OdesaMark Naydorf, philosopher, lecturer in history and theory of culture, Odesa National Pedagogical University, OdesaOlga Yarovaya, artist, OdesaDaniil Russov, documentary photographer and journalist, Member of the Kharkiv School of Photography, KyivMatthias Schmidt, professor at the Technische Universität Dresden, University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Goerlitz and the Odesа Polytechnic National UniversityOleg Tretyak, fine art photographer, OdesaEmilien Urbano, acclaimed war photographer and filmmaker working on a frontline documentary since 2022, Kyiv & ParisYefim Aglitskiy, Odesa-born physicist, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Alexandria USATaissia Naidenko, acclaimed poet and journalist, OdesaLesya Verba, artist, bandura player, author of the History of “non Odesa” Songs songbook, Odesa & New YorkYulia Verba, writer and playwright, recipient of the Sholom Aleichem National Award for contributions to Ukrainian and Jewish culture, Member of American PEN, New YorkArthur Zolotarevsky, CEO of the NeuroIFRAH Clinic, Director of the New York chapter of the Odesa Worldwide Club, New YorkKateryna Bezpalova, philologist, interpreter and Associate Professor at the Odesa National University, OdesaBoris Alexandrov, Member of the Designers Council of Ukraine, Member of the Art Directors Club of Ukraine, Founder and Creative Director of the international branding and architecture agency Brandon Archibald, OdessaMykhailo Rashkovetskyi, art historian, curator, member of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize Committee (2019-2023), OdesaOleksandr Levytskyi, architectural photographer, CEO of the Architecture of Odesa and Odesa’s Thousand Doors restoration project; developer of the Guide to setting up Odesa signboards, OdesaDmytro Shamatazhi, historian, architectural photographer for the Architecture of Odesa project, restorer at Thousands of Odessa doors project, OdesaBorys Goloborodko, Medical Doctor, OdesaVittoria Massimiani, Slavist and Italianist, literary translator and creator and director of Italian (and bilingual Italian-French) books-editions, ParisAnne Gorouben, painter, ParisIsabelle Némirovski, President of the association Les Amis d’Odessa and author of Histoire, mémoires et représentations des Juifs d’Odessa, ParisJanna Kiseleva, architect art director & Founder в JK Lab Architectural studio, Head of Design Council with City Hall of Odessa, Limassol & OdesaOleg Favelukis, CEO в JK Lab Architectural studio, Limassol & OdesaMaryna Perepelytsia-Simonetti, Ukrainian pianist, Director of the children's music festival "Made in Ukraine," Odesa & Freiburg im BreisgauAnne Duruflé, diplomat, ParisMichel Guikovaty, pianist, ParisRegina Maryanovska Davidzon, filmmaker, award winning producer, co-founder of The Odessa Review, and of Real Pictures, Odesa & ParisBoris Vladimirsky, Odesa-born art scholar and author of Rejoicing and Shuddering (works of Isaac Babel), San JoseStefano Della Torre, civil engineer and architect, President of the SIRA (Italian Society of Architectural Restoration), MilanHarald Binder, historian and philanthropist, chair of the Foundation for the Promotion of Culture, Science, and Education in Ukraine, founder of the Center for Urban History and Jam Factory Art Center in Lviv, LvivEdward Amchislavsky, art historian, New YorkKateryna Titova, distinguished Ukrainian pianist now artist-in-residence at Raiding, BerlinMarina Kovalyov, President of the A.S.E.Global Bridges Foundation, New YorkAlexander Tsymbalyuk, award-winning Ukrainian opera singer, Honored Artist of Ukraine, member of the Hamburg State Opera, soloist of the world’s leading opera houses, HamburgChristophe Lacarin, viticulteur, member of Rotary Club Odessa International, OdesaZoya Arova, mathematician, poet, composer, writer, Rishon Le-Zion & OdesaArtem Kharchenko, historian at the Center for Interethnic Relations Research in Eastern Europe, KharkivMykyta Abramov, artist and documentary photographer, OdesaAnne Laurent, literary translator, ParisViktor Tyblevych, sculptor, OdesaOlga Engibarova, photographer, OdesaOlena Khanenkova, journalist, OdesaElla Leus, writer, OdesaInna Bogachinskaya, poet, journalist, translator, New YorkGrigori Samouelian, writer & poet, New YorkAlexander Schmidt, historian of European political thought, JenaKarina Shragina-Kats, actress at the Odesa State Puppet Theatre, OdesaMeelis Kubits, head of the “Cultural Partnership Foundation”, leader of the cultural diplomacy movement, and cultural relations between Odesa and Tallinn, TallinnValentyna Goloborodko, Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New YorkNikolay Karabinovych, Odesa-born Ukrainian multimedia artist, AntwerpIhor Yakubenko, physicist, LvivAlex Sino, Odesa-born multi Grammy Award winning songwriter, producer and screenwriter, sole Ukrainian Latin Grammy Award winner, New York and VeronaIgor Romanov, philosopher and psychoanalyst, Associate Professor of philosophy at the Kharkiv National University, KharkivJulian Evans, British writer and journalist reporting on Ukraine for three decades, author of Undefeatable: Odesa in Love and War, LondonOlena Shylova, psychologist and Member of the International Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy and Director of the Odesa Gestalt Institute, OdesaViktoriia Sakhnienko, psychologist and Member of the Odesa Gestalt Institute, OdesaMaya Shepelyeva, Professor Emerita of philosophy at the Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University, OdesaVolodymyr Skalozub, lecturer in the Department of Nuclear Power Plants at the Odesa National Polytechnic University, OdesaOlga Kashymbekova, film and multimedia artist and curator, OdesaRoman Dubasevych, Chair of Ukrainian Studies and Head of the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Greifswald, GreifswaldIryna Morozovskaya, psychologist, singer-songwriter and members of the Odesa “What? Where? When” team, OdesaAnna Filimonova, Ukrainian journalist and host of the Kava-Chai Podcast, Bucha and OdesaAleksandr Kuperman, Advisor to the Chairman of the Board of PJSC Bank Vostok, OdesaMarta Havryshko, historian, Dr. Thomas Zand Visiting Assistant Professor at Clark University, Research Fellow at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, Worcester (USA) and LvivTatiana Bykadorova, Curator of the Department of Classical Antiquity at the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art, OdesaGleb Dolianovskiy, interpreter, Ukrainian Armed Forces, KyivAldo Giannuli, writer, blogger, associate professor of Modern History at Milan’s University of Studies, Milan