Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum of Maria Primachenko
The Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum opened on 21 February 1981. The pride of the museum is the exhibition of paintings of the first magnitude by Maria Prymachenko whose career began as part of the Ivankiv Co-operative Embroidery Association. Maria was born in 1909 to a carpenter and craftsman and brought up simply and rurally, in a small village near Ivankiv, 19 miles from Chernobyl, where she lived for most of her life. She suffered polio at an early age and lived with disabilities, an experience that inevitably influenced her art and outlook on life. Nevertheless, she spent the next 60 years as an artist, drawing inspiration from the Ukrainian countryside, to create distinctive mythological-style scenes. She also drew from local mythology and folklore and was known for her depictions of fantastic beasts, which Marc Chagall is quoted as saying he copied.
The museum had many interesting exhibits, monuments, history and culture with the latest exhibitoned "Chernobyl our pain" and "Tragedy and bravery of Afghanistan" and "Ivankiv and Münster in the Second World War - a Ukrainian-German research project.
On the 25th of February 2022 the museum was burned down after Russian bombardment. Ten of Maria Primachenko's works were saved by a local man who entered the museum whilst it was on fire.