INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
At first, Natalia Kapustnikova refused to tell the group of men in black balaclavas and military uniforms where they could find the
they were particularly interested in luminous landscapes by Arkhip Kuindzhi, a Mariupol-born artist who spent much of his career along the
including its museums, was destroyed or badly damaged in a three-month battle that began after the Kremlin ordered troops into Ukraine in
looting on Ukrainian territory since the beginning of the invasion, and UNESCO said last month that 152 cultural or historic sites in
hangs in the Russian Museum in St
Mozgovoi, Zheltyakov and men in balaclavas can be seen packing up priceless paintings in Mariupol and loading them into a minivan.While
Mozgovoi maintained that the artworks were transported to the separatist capital of Donetsk for safekeeping, Ukrainian officials have
Kuindzhi paintings from Mariupol is "part of a wider attempt to erase cultural heritage in Ukraine," according to Mollie Arbuthnot, an
sticking out in different directions, and they were very vulnerable
world-renowned Kuindzhi in Mariupol and the significant damage to both the Kuindzhi Art Museum and the Kuindzhi Center for Contemporary Art
works to argue that such an act of vandalism is wrong, or that viewing his history through a Russian nationalist lens is
