Tavrian painting, with its distinctive ornaments, restrained colour range and deep philosophy, could not leave the staff of scholarly and cultural institutions indifferent. For it is built on a sincere love of the native land, on honour for people and on responsibility for the surrounding world.

Already in the lifetime of the first researcher and populariser of this unique kind of art, Yevhenia Bondarenko, staff of the Mykolaiv Regional Universal Scientific Library and of the municipal cultural institution “Mykolaiv Regional Local History Museum” valued the painting positively, discerned the potential laid in it and became its fervent advocates. These institutions, as centres of local-history, scholarly and public-awareness work, have from the 1990s continually organised events directed toward the support of the painting, formed a thematic collection of publications, gathered a collection of works and opened to the public the unlike cultural heritage of Southern Ukraine. For all their shared interest, their work differs.

Municipal cultural institution “Mykolaiv Regional Local History Museum”

The library acts as a theoretical centre in which bibliographic materials are kept: art-historical albums, articles, conference papers, methodological developments. It helps admirers of folk art to gain the knowledge they need, including through participation in public-awareness events.

Mykolaiv Regional Universal Scientific Library

The museum, for its part, works with the attribution, representation and keeping of material cultural heritage: pictures and other decorative objects created by bearers of this original kind of art at different times. Joined in displays, they are a visual handbook for those who wish to go deeper into the study of the painting.

Today the library and the museum are a place of research, sharing and keeping of the unlike cultural heritage of the Mykolaiv Region.