Caharkala/Agency Caucasus – The paintings that survived the Chechen-Russian war’s demolition of the Petr Zaharov museum in Caharkala, capital of Chechnya, would be put on display, a statement released from Russia’s puppet government of Chechnya said.
The Chechen Ministry of Culture made efforts to bring back to Caharkala the paintings that been taken to Moscow, capital of Russia, after they had been found among the ruins of the museum, the statement said.
After the paintings are repaired, they will be brought to Caharkala by the time the Day of Museums gets celebrated on May 18.
Dikal Muzakayev, the Chechen Minister of Culture, said that the museum of Petr Zaharov (1816-1852), who was a Chechen painter and portrayer, would be rebuilt after the museum materials were collected.
The 1994 bombing of Caharkala left the museum, altogether with the materials that it took more than half a century to collect, in ruins. The museum contained works by Zaharov, Kuindji, artists from Western Europe, and painters from Chechnya and Ingushetia. Most of those paintings are no longer present. The works by the Vainah artists who lived in the second half of the 20th century were destroyed, too. Workers of the Emergencies Ministry rescued 500 works from the ruins of the museum in 1995. Of them, 112 are kept in the State Center for Museum and Exhibition of the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Culture. Over 50 paintings were repaired.
The demolished museum of Petr Zaharov contained over 1000 works of art in the early 1990s. RE/ÖZ/HT
