Ochakiv City Council names reasons for possible eviction of Sudkovskyi Museum from municipal building

The Ochakiv City Council is considering terminating the lease agreement with the Rufin Sudkovsky Museum of Marinist Painting. The reason for this decision is the improper maintenance of the building, violation of its operating conditions and negligent care.

This was reported by the city council in response to a request from NikVesti.

As noted in the letter, on 16 September 2025, a special commission of the City Council, headed by Deputy Mayor Oleksii Vaskov, inspected the museum premises. Based on the results of the inspection, an act was drawn up, which recorded damage to the plaster of the interior walls and partial destruction of the roof — four sheets of the coating were missing. It was also noted that the building was partially destroyed, but suitable for use after repair.

The inspection report:

The reason for the commission's creation was an appeal from Anna Belibova, head of the Department of Education and Humanitarian Affairs of the Ochakiv City Council.

After the possible termination of the lease agreement, the vacated part of the premises is planned to be used for an aesthetic education school. However, the issue of providing the museum with other premises in Ochakiv has not yet been considered.

We remind you that the threat of eviction became known during a meeting of the specialised commission of the Mykolaiv Regional Council. Olena Buberenko, Head of the Department of Culture, Nationalities and Religions of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, explained that the museum rents premises that belong to the communal property of the Ochakiv City Council.

Since the beginning of 2022, all exhibits have been removed. However, the museum plans to resume work after the end of hostilities. However, according to Olena Buberenko, the Ochakiv city authorities verbally warned the museum's management that the lease would not be extended after 1 January 2026.

Reference. Ochakiv is the birthplace of the famous 19th-century marine painter Rufin Sudkovskyi. In 1982, the first museum of marine painting in Ukraine, a branch of the Vereshchahin Mykolaiv Regional Art Museum, was opened here. The museum building is pre-revolutionary and was once used as a barracks and a polyclinic. The collection includes over 600 works of art.

The exhibition consists of three halls. The first one is dedicated to the life and work of Rufin Sudkovskyi, in particular his works with landscapes of Mykolaiv region. The second one is dedicated to marine painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including originals by Ivan Aivazovskyi, and the third one is dedicated to works by 20th-century artists.

As a reminder, 329 paintings of the twentieth century from the collections of two local museums in Mykolaiv — the Vasyl Vereshchahin Art Museum and the Regional Museum of Local Lore — are now available in a virtual gallery and a bilingual printed catalogue. This became possible thanks to the cultural project «Digital Museum Collection», which has been running for 5 years.

Earlier, NikVesti wrote that as of 7 September, the Mykolaiv Regional Museum of Local Lore and the Vasyl Vereshchahin Art Museum had digitised almost 700 exhibits.

From the first days of the full-scale war, Mykolaiv museums had to save exhibits from shelling and the risk of occupation. The collections of the three largest institutions, the Vasyl Vereshchahin Art Museum, the Regional Museum of Local Lore, and the Museum of Shipbuilding and Fleet, were evacuated to safe places. Read more about how it happened in the article NikVesti Evacuation of exhibits and shelling: survival of Mykolaiv museums during the war