Recently, the Odessa Regional Development Agency, together with the Odessa Regional Centre for Ukrainian Culture, organised online training for about a hundred community representatives and cultural figures. The aim was to familiarise participants with the capabilities of the Living Museum digital platform, which is designed to preserve and promote the region’s traditions, crafts, rituals, songs and other elements of intangible cultural heritage.
The Living Museum is an initiative aimed at preserving and presenting the traditions, rituals, crafts, and other elements of the intangible cultural heritage of the Odesa region in a modern way. It has been operating successfully for several years at the Odesa Regional Centre for Ukrainian Culture, and has now received a new impetus for development thanks to a web platform.
The Living Museum web platform was developed by the Odessa Regional Development Agency with the support of Switzerland as part of the Swiss-Ukrainian project ‘Ukraine’s Cohesion and Regional Development’ (UCORD), which is being implemented with the support of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and NIRAS Sweden AB.
Serhiy Kononenko, Director of the Odessa Regional Development Agency, noted that digital tools make Odessa more recognisable among international partners and bring the region’s cultural heritage closer, more popular and more accessible to a wider audience, ensuring its preservation for future generations.
This innovative digital product has become not only a tool for preserving intangible cultural heritage and cultural exchange, but also a new channel for promoting the region’s tourist appeal. The platform has attracted the interest of international partners, particularly from Croatia, with whom a consortium has been formed and a joint application submitted for the technology and culture project ‘Art in Motion’ within the Creative Europe Programme (CREA) – European Cooperation Projects (CREA-CULT-2025-COOP-2, medium scale project). This is an example of how a local initiative can scale up to the European level of cooperation,” he said.
Key features of the platform:
- An interactive heritage catalogue containing artefacts of traditional folk art — towels, straw weaving, clay toys, decorative painting, pysanky, etc.
- Multilingualism: the platform is multilingual, with translations into seven languages, facilitating access to cultural resources not only for Ukrainians but also for foreign audiences.
- Living heritage stories: on the interactive map of the region, you can explore unique traditions and crafts, such as ‘Black Sea clay toys’, the Christmas ritual “Moshu”, traditional sheep farming in Bessarabia, and even the game ‘Ashik’, which has a thousand-year history.
Why is this necessary?
- Preserving cultural identity: an online archive makes it possible to record unique traditions that have been passed down through generations.
- Educational opportunities: users can easily learn about cultural heritage through access to video lessons and virtual exhibitions.
- Tourism and economic development: interactive content opens up opportunities for new cultural routes and support for artisans.
- Practical component: the platform allows you to visit virtual exhibitions, master classes, and learn about the stories of masters.
RDA of Odessa region and the Odessa Regional Centre for Ukrainian Culture invite communities in the region to contribute to the platform:
“Ghromads are true ambassadors of their cultural heritage: they share knowledge about local customs, traditions and unique achievements, and the Odessa Regional Centre for Ukrainian Culture transfers this information to a web platform. The interactive map of the Odesa region on the web platform is gradually being filled with locations, and we invite communities and cultural figures to become more actively involved in the process and provide this information to the Centre,” said Olga Sorochko, Deputy Director of the Odesa Regional Administration, who coordinated the development and launch of this platform.
You can familiarise yourself with the Living Museum web platform at the following link: https://museum.oocuk.com.ua/