Theatrical procession “NABAT — Protect Culture!”

Neither the 40-degree heat nor the holidays stopped the marchers. At the start journalists could talk to the guests — among them the cultural attaché of the Lithuanian embassy, a UN Peace Ambassador in Ukraine, People’s Artist of Ukraine Bohdan Beniuk and the president of the Ukrainian PEN Club Yevhen Sverstiuk.

The co-organiser was Yevhen Karas, head of the civic committee “Culture Against Vandalism” and president of the Association of Contemporary Art Figures; the initiator was Volodymyr Soroka. The “last chord” sounded by the last bookshop on Khreshchatyk, which had existed for 85 years and was about to lose its premises. The procession launched the NABAT 2020 movement.

The organization later called this a “costumed” procession: the marchers wore white masks with dark glasses over them and carried a reproduction of Leonardo’s Madonna struck through in red, along with slogans such as “Away with culture” and “We are the new face of Kyiv” — speaking, that is, in the voice of those they opposed. Seven television channels filmed it.

That the reports aired at all followed an earlier move: an announcement sent by fax and email on the letterhead of two international movements at once — NABAT 2020 and Clean Channels. On it the text stood against a bell drawn from the names of cultural institutions destroyed or damaged across Ukraine. By the founder’s account this series of actions delayed the rebuilding of Andriivskyi Descent by six years.