Cardboard boxes with photographs and military artifacts are arranged in a route through Irpin, Bakhmut, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and other points of the Kalinovsky regiment’s combat path. An unusual exhibition in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra tells the story of four years of resistance by Belarusian volunteers, who fought shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians against Russia.
This struggle has a long common history: 512 years ago, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians and Poles together defeated the Muscovite army in the Battle of Orsha, despite the numerical superiority of the enemy. To mark the anniversary of the Orsha victory and the fourth anniversary of the formation of the regiment, the Kalinin soldiers were presented with awards from the International Legion of the Armed Forces of the Ministry of Defense near the Assumption Cathedral. It is here that the bas-relief of Prince Konstantin Ostrohsky, whose brilliant tactics brought victory to the allied army, is located.
The exhibition “Kalinovsky’s Regiment: The Long Journey Home” was opened on the first tier of the Great Lavra Bell Tower. Its concept is based on the constant migrations of the people of Kalinov, for whom this is a forced reality.
Coming to fight for Ukraine, Belarusian volunteers actually lose the opportunity to return home, because in Belarus they are equated with terrorists. Some are forced to remain anonymous even when receiving awards, so as not to endanger their relatives. In Ukraine, many Kalinin residents also do not have permanent shelter, so during vacations or rotations they pack their things again.
It was one of these moves that sparked the idea for the exhibition. As the soldiers were packing and sorting their belongings, they came up with the idea of abandoning the traditional gallery display and making the main element of the exhibition ordinary cardboard boxes.
They were mounted with photographs and descriptions of events. The boxes were used to create compositions about different stages of the regiment’s combat journey, and a diagram of the places associated with them was marked on the floor. Thus, the history of constant relocations became a way to tell about the regiment’s journey, in which memory remains the heaviest and most valuable cargo.
The exhibition was jointly organized by the NGO “Kalynovtsi”, the press service of the Kastus Kalynovsky Regiment, and the Center for Contemporary Art of Zaporizhzhia. It will be on the first tier of the Great Lavra Bell Tower for two weeks.
