The Historic Centre of Odesa

• War
• Buffer zone
• Legal framework
• Management plan

• War

Not yet drafted

Not yet identified

Not yet identified

• UNESCO-Japan Funds-in-Trust project ‘Emergency response for World Heritage and cultural property: damage assessment and protection’ (USD 4,065,000 in 2023), from which Odesa partly benefits
• UNESCO-Japan Funds-in-Trust project “Preserving cultural heritage in Ukraine: Reinforcing monitoring, emergency response and preparedness at damaged cultural and natural heritage sites in Ukraine, including the World Heritage property ‘The Historic Centre of Odesa’” (USD 5,899,270 in 2024) from which Odesa partly benefits
• UNESCO-Italy Funds-in-Trust project ‘Urgent provision of a protective roof for the Transfiguration Cathedral’: USD 530,000 (in 2024)
• Heritage Emergency Fund: USD 416,350 (2023-2024)
• Foundation of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière: USD 192,600 (in 2024)
• World Heritage Fund (budget line for properties on the List of World Heritage in Danger): USD 30,000 (in 2024)

On 31 January 2024, the State Party submitted a state of conservation report, a summary of which is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1703/documents. The State Party reports that it has been working on two fronts: the implementation of the Committee’s Decision 18 EXT.COM 5.2 and the response to the consequences of the military strikes by the Russian Federation on the property and its buffer zone.

With regard to the implementation of the above-mentioned Decision, the State Party reports that it has been hampered by the ongoing war:

• A map showing an expanded boundary was submitted to the World Heritage Centre in June 2023 and referred back to the State Party after ICOMOS concluded that it did not comply with the Committee’s decision. A revised proposal, in line with the Committee’s recommendations, has been prepared by the Municipality of Odesa for submission to the World Heritage Centre;
• The submission of a Minor Boundary Modification for the buffer zone will be undertaken after the map of the extended boundary of the property has been approved;
• A joint UNESCO World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission was invited to visit the property in March 2023, but it has not yet taken place due to the security situation;
• The legal protection system for the property has been strengthened and as of December 2023, construction permits in the Central Historic Area require approval in accordance with the Law of Ukraine ‘On Protection of Cultural Heritage’;
• The integration of Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) mechanisms into the legal framework as a prerequisite for urban development projects and activities planned within the property and its buffer zone would require an amendment of the State Party’s regulatory framework;
• The implementation of preservation programmes, including the restoration of facades and roofs of important cultural heritage buildings, continues;
• A process to identify the tangible and intangible aspects of the city’s multi-ethnic and multicultural heritage is underway through an EU4Culture project.

The State Party further reports that:

• Five large-scale missile and drone strikes by the Russian Federation hit the property in the second half of 2023, resulting in damage to approximately 100 cultural heritage sites in the property and its buffer zone;
• During meetings of the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention) on 7 September and 14 December 2023, three cultural heritage buildings in the property were granted provisional enhanced protection under the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention.

Actions implemented by UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies to assist the State Party

UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies are working closely with the competent authorities and other cultural heritage stakeholders in Ukraine, as well as international partners, to support Ukraine in the protection and safeguarding of its cultural heritage. This support is part of UNESCO’s Actions and Emergency Assistance Programme for Ukraine and, more broadly, the Action Plan for Culture in Ukraine, which was coordinated by UNESCO and developed in close cooperation with more than forty national and international partners, including ICOMOS and ICCROM, and the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy (MCIP), which endorsed it in August 2023.

In the city of Odesa, more than 300 cultural sites have been marked with the Blue Shield emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention, both inside and outside the perimeter of the World Heritage property.

In partnership with UNITAR/UNOSAT (United Nations Satellite Centre), UNESCO continued the daily verification and documentation of war damage to cultural sites, including the updating and maintenance of the Ukraine Cultural Heritage Monitoring Platform developed by UNESCO and UNITAR/UNOSAT. Satellite monitoring of cultural sites in Ukraine is being complemented by on-site assessment of a selected number of damaged cultural properties.

As part of the partnership with UNITAR/UNOSAT, UNESCO organised an awareness-raising webinar on the principles of Geospatial Information Technologies (GIT) on 20 October 2023. The webinar was attended by the MCIP and more than 160 participants, including heritage professionals from the Odesa City Council. The modules were translated into Ukrainian and made available on the UNITAR training courses website. Following the webinar, UNESCO and UNITAR/UNOSAT organised an on-site advanced training on the use of satellite imagery and data interpretation for 20 Ukrainian cultural and heritage professionals, including from the Odesa City Council, in L’viv from 27 to 30 November 2023.

Following the UNESCO International Expert Mission to Assess Damage to Cultural and Religious Sites in Odesa (from 29 July to 1 August 2023 and from 28 August to 10 September 2023), which included ICCROM and ICOMOS experts, a detailed report was presented to the 15th Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the 1954 Hague Convention on 11 December 2023, providing details of the 52 cultural properties that the authorities reported had been damaged, of which 47 could be verified by the UNESCO International Expert Mission (five could not be verified due to restricted access). The information collected was used to formulate and improve the effectiveness of emergency measures and interventions, to strengthen first aid and risk prevention in accordance with Decision 18.EXT.COM 5.2, and to prepare long-term comprehensive conservation plans.

In the framework of the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust project ‘Emergency response for World Heritage and cultural property: damage assessment and protection’, UNESCO, in cooperation with ICCROM, organised an online workshop on 3 and 6 October 2023, with the participation of more than 100 national and international stakeholders, including the National Heritage Institute of Poland, World Monuments Fund, UNOSAT and MCIP and its national partners including heritage professionals from the Odesa Regional State Administration. The workshop served, to identify and discuss existing methodologies for damage and risk assessment of cultural property. The outcome of this workshop, aimed at cultural heritage professionals, World Heritage and Tentative List sites managers, and those responsible for cultural property under enhanced protection, was the development of a unified methodology and form for on-site damage and risk assessment of cultural property, adapted to the Ukrainian context, in accordance with the national regulatory framework and the 1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols (1954 and 1999). Based on the methodology developed, a 5-day in-person workshop was held in L’viv from 23 to 27 October 2023 for 20 Ukrainian professionals, including from the Odesa City Council and the Odesa Regional State Administration, on how to conduct on-site damage and risk assessments.

As well as assessing the damage, the work of UNESCO and its partners, thanks in particular to the Heritage Emergency Fund (HEF), has focused on urgent repairs and protective measures, as well as strengthening emergency preparedness and first aid.

In cooperation with the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative (HERI)/Agency for Cultural Resilience (ACURE) and the Department of Culture, International Cooperation and European Integration of the Odesa City Council, with the support of ICCROM, ICOMOS and UNDRR, a workshop on ‘Improving the efficiency of emergency response, first-aid and external risk management for cultural heritage in the historic centre of Odesa’ was organised in Odesa (18-19 September 2023), with 40 participants from 27 organisations, representing local governments, emergency response and law enforcement agencies, museums, cultural institutions and civil society organisations.

Repairs to the Odesa Fine Arts Museum and the securing and digitisation of the museum’s collections and archives have been completed. Winterisation of the House of Scientists and the Western and Eastern Art Museum has also been completed. The windows of the Manuk-Bey Mansion/Kindergarten № 50, the Literature Museum and the Fine Arts Museum have been fitted with oriented strand board and protective armour film.

Five major public monuments have been secured with protective coverings, and the protection of two other monuments is ongoing.

In preparation for protective measures and urgent repairs, architectural visual and instrumental inspections were carried out on five priority buildings (House of Scientists, Manuk-Bey Mansion/kindergarten № 50, Stoliarsky Music School, Professional College of Industrial Automation and Information Technologies of Odesa National Technological University and Kindergarten № 29), as well as urgent geological surveys at the Literature Museum.

From the list of 47 sites inspected by the UNESCO International Expert Mission in August-September 2023, crack monitoring gauges were procured and installed in January 2024 in nine priority buildings at risk (Museum of Fine Arts, Passage and Hotel ‘Passage’, Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Technical School of Industrial Automatics, residential building Massa, Stolyarsky State Music School, Archaeological Museum, Literature Museum, and House of Scientists). In consultation with the MCIP, four historic buildings have also been pre-identified for urgent repairs (Stolyarsky State Music School, Manuk-Bey’s Mansion/ kindergarten № 50, the Massa residential building/Professional College of Industrial Automation and Information Technologies of Odesa National University of Technology, and kindergarten № 29). In addition, urgent stabilisation works at the House of Scientists, including the retaining wall and the annex building A, will be prioritised as part of the HEF-supported project, which is scheduled to start in June 2024.

Following the signing of a project agreement between Italy (Italian Agency for Cooperation and Development) and UNESCO on 7 February 2024, UNESCO is contributing to the completion of the installation of a permanent roof (remaining 115.2 sqm) over the area of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa, which was damaged as a result of a missile attack by the Russian Federation on 23 July 2023. This action will be informed by the results of an in-depth structural analysis and building pathology conducted by an international technical team set up by UNESCO for this purpose. As a result of the structural research, which UNESCO presented to local stakeholders in Odesa on 24 May 2024, preparations for the implementation of the works are underway.

The city’s museums have also been at the centre of activities by UNESCO and its partners. As part of the project funded by the Foundation of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, support has been provided for the reorganisation of storage at the Archaeological Museum. Two trainings have been organised: from 23 to 28 October 2023 to train museum staff on storage reorganisation and risk management; and from 16 to 19 January 2024 to finalise the list of necessary equipment and units, assess potential new space for storage reorganisation and analyse security measures and requirements.

In addition, UNESCO, in cooperation with the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) and the Getty Conservation Institute, has organised training sessions for museums professionals at the L’viv Culture Hub, an initiative supported by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation: from 10 to 11 October 2023 on collection management and preservation during conflict, with the participation of the curator of the Archaeological Museum of Odesa; and from 27 to 29 February 2024, on critical skills in collection management, digitisation and emergency preparedness for heritage professionals, with the participation of the director of the Odesa Archaeological Museum.

At the request of the national and local authorities, UNESCO’s assistance will now focus on the preparation of the management plan for the property, with the support of the World Heritage Fund and in close cooperation with ICOMOS, with whom a first meeting on World Heritage processes and the implementation of Decision 18 EXT.COM 5.2 was held on 24 January 2024.

As part of a new UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust project ‘Preserving cultural heritage in Ukraine: Reinforcing monitoring, emergency response and preparedness at damaged cultural and natural heritage sites in Ukraine, including the World Heritage property ‘The Historic Centre of Odesa’, UNESCO will assist the State Party in the development of an emergency preparedness and risk mitigation plan and the enhancement of operational protocols for the property to be included in its management plan, in risk preparedness and emergency response training for key professionals likely to intervene at the property and the development of an urgent conservation plan for the damaged cultural building of the House of Scientists.

It is of grave concern that, as reported by the State Party, five large-scale missile and drone strikes hit the property and its buffer zone in 2023. Military actions by the Russian Federation continue to pose a significant ascertained threat to the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property.

The State Party has made significant progress in responding to the Committee’s decision of January 2023 despite the difficult situation due to the ongoing war. In particular, the State Party has submitted an updated map of the boundaries of the property and its buffer zone  which is deemed to be consistent with the boundaries of the property as inscribed and is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1703/maps/.

The Committee may therefore wish to remind the State Party and the international partners supporting the protection of cultural heritage in Ukraine that the State Party’s intention to undertake or to authorize in an area protected under the Convention major restorations or new constructions which may affect the OUV of the property should be notified to the World Heritage Centre as soon as possible and before making any decisions that would be difficult to reverse, so that the Committee may assist in seeking appropriate solutions to ensure that the OUV of the property is fully preserved, in accordance with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines.

The rationale for a phased approach to the submission of a minor boundary modification request to extend the boundaries of the buffer zone, as recommended by the Committee, is supported.

Moreover, the documentation, stabilisation, repair and restoration work of damaged cultural heritage buildings reported by the State Party is commendable in these challenging circumstances.

The strengthening of the protection of the property through the requirement that construction permits in the Central Historic Area be approved in accordance with the Law of Ukraine ‘On Protection of Cultural Heritage’, should be welcomed. However, Heritage Impact Assessment mechanisms have yet to be integrated into the legal framework as a prerequisite for development projects and activities planned in the property and its buffer zone.

It is unfortunate that the joint UNESCO World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission to the property has been delayed due to the security situation, as this mission could have also advised the State Party on the development of a management plan for the property, including on the development of monitoring indicators and disaster risk preparedness. Ongoing UNESCO’s assistance in this regard, through the World Heritage Fund and other funding mechanisms, is welcomed and should be further encouraged. Until the security situation allows for the organisation of the Reactive Monitoring mission, the State Party should benefit from the continuing assistance of UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies in establishing the Desired state of conservation for the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger (DSOCR) and in defining a set of corrective measures along with a timeframe for their implementation, including disaster, climate change and other risk preparedness measures to be included in the revised Management Plan, noting that this process may need to be adapted in light of the ongoing war and its unpredictable consequences.

The State Party’s efforts to identify the tangible and intangible aspects of the property’s multiethnic and multicultural heritage through the European Union funded ‘Support for the Implementation of the Odesa Cultural Development Strategy’ project, is welcome. The submission of documentation on the outcomes of project would also be welcome.

The State Party’s active engagement in the implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols (1954 and 1999), which has been granted provisional enhanced protection in the property, should be welcomed. This can be seen as an example of the State Party’s earnest engagement in the safeguarding the OUV of the property, during a time when it is under attack.

Overall, the property remains subject to ascertained and potential danger due to the ongoing war and should remain on the List of World Heritage in Danger.