As of: 6/6/2022 8:54 p.m
Minister of State for Culture Roth wants to get a “picture of the face of war beyond the question of heavy weapons” in Odessa. She announced support for the city’s application for UNESCO heritage status.
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth has arrived in the Ukrainian city of Odessa for a two-day visit. The Greens politician is the first member of the federal government to visit the strategically important port city and cultural metropolis on the Black Sea after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine – at the invitation of the Ukrainian Minister of Culture Olexandr Tkachenko.
Odessa wants to become a UNESCO cultural heritage
Roth announced that he wanted to help Odessa apply for UNESCO World Heritage status. She assured Tkachenko and the mayor of the southwestern Ukrainian city, Hennady Trukhanov, that she would. “Germany supports this application,” said Roth on behalf of the federal government. She also wants to campaign for Odessa’s application to her colleagues in other countries.
The city is obviously in an emergency situation, you can see everywhere how works of art are being protected from the attacks, says Roth. “The Ukrainian government is not alone. We want to show that we are there,” Roth said. “We want to show how culture is being attacked.” She wants to find out in Odessa what the face of the war looks like beyond the question of heavy weapons.
Support for artists and institutions
Roth has already campaigned several times to support Ukrainian artists in their country and refugee artists in Germany as well as Ukrainian cultural institutions.
In Odessa she will meet, among others, the governor of Odessa Oblast, Maksym Marchenko, and the city’s mayor, Hennady Trukhanov. The Minister of State for Culture also wants to visit the Odessa Film Studio, the city’s Philharmonic Theatre, as well as the opera, ballet and the Odessa Scientific Library.