Ministry of Culture shows Soviet space museum in Orthodox church of Pereyaslav

Space Museum in the Orthodox Church of Pereyaslav. Photo: Verbitsky's FB

Deputy Minister of Culture Ivan Verbitsky published a report on his visit to the National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve "Pereyaslav", whose employees recently forcibly expelled UOC monks from St. Michael's Monastery.

Verbitsky showed photos of the Reserve's exhibitions, among which was a Soviet space museum located in the unique wooden church of St. Paraskeva. As it turned out, it is still operating. It contains models of lunar rovers, rescue capsules with the inscription "USSR," launch positions of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, food for cosmonauts, and other items. On the walls, instead of icons, there are photographs of cosmonauts.

Why the museum was not moved to a more suitable location during teh period of Ukraine's independence remains unknown.

Commenting on the expulsion from St. Michael's Monastery, he stated that "the State Executive Service returned the complex to the Reserve's use after unauthorized seizure by one of the religious organizations." Verbitsky did not specify why the museum workers need St. Michael's Church and how they plan to use it.

As reported, in Pereyaslav, police conducted a forcible seizure of St. Michael's Monastery of the UOC.

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