“German Heritage” in Ukraine’s Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest: 2023 results, 2024 plans

Last year Ukraine’s Wiki Loves Monuments organising team inaugurated a special category “German Heritage” in partnership with the Council of Germans of Ukraine (CGU). As this year’s contest just started, and the special category is on for the second time during October, let’s look at 2023 results and best photos.

“Ukrainian Germans (Ukrainedeutsche) have been living on the territory of modern Ukraine since the Middle Ages, with a significant uptick in moving here after 1763 – Germans received special privileges, like not paying taxes, and were able to settle, build their own villages and towns, especially in the south and east of Ukraine. World War II led to them being either deported as ‘traitors’ to Siberia or leaving for Germany to avoid deportation, so there were almost no ethnic Germans left here for a while. Some of the churches, factories, mills, and buildings they left were destroyed, rebuilt or repurposed, but some of them survived, and we would like to collect pictures and videos of what is left to illustrate Wikipedia.

This work is especially important now, since a lot of those settlements are now in the occupied territories of Ukraine or getting destroyed in the course of the war Russia is wedging against Ukraine. The support of the Council of Germans of Ukraine allowed us to have this special category organised in 2023, and now also in 2024” – commented Atoly, a Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine organising team member. “We have created and continue to maintain a list of cultural heritage monuments, which can be found here: german.wlm.photo. There are around 300 objects there already, and we continue working on expanding them. Both sites that have official protection status and sites that are not officially protected are included there, just like we do for other special categories in our contest“.

Volodymyr Leisle, the President of the Council of Germans in Ukraine, commented: “Documentation and popularisation of the German cultural heritage of Ukraine is very important for us. Settlements such as Bakhmut, New York [town in eastern Ukraine], Tokmak, settlements near the Molochna River, Berdyansk, Mariupol and other cities of eastern and southern Ukraine have deep historical and cultural ties with German colonists. I would like to believe that our joint work will help preserve and present archival photos of German heritage in digital format, especially the ones which have already been destroyed due to Russian military aggression…

We plan to organise a writing campaign in Wikipedia dedicated to historical and cultural heritage of ethnic Germans in Ukraine, in order to use the photos collected”.

Overall there are 226 sites in the list of special category “German Heritage”, 150 of which are not protected by the state. During the inaugural 2023 contest 27 participants uploaded almost 700 photos of 137 sites, out of which 104 do not have official protection status. These objects represent 12 out of 27 regions of Ukraine.

Council of Germans of Ukraine helped to assemble a jury of the special category, listed below (alphabetically):

●  Dr. Alfred Eisfeld is an expert in the history and culture of Germans in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and the CEE countries and an author of many scientific works.

●   Volodymyr Leisle is a Ukrainian activist of German origin. He has headed the Council of Germans of Ukraine since 2009, being in charge of German government support and right and interests protection of the German minorities program in Ukraine.

●   Dr. Dmytro Myeshkov is a history scholar in Nordost-Institut at University of Hamburg.

●   Christel Steigenberger is a Wikimedia Commons administrator and editor of Wikipedia in German.

●   Edwin Warkentin is the head of the cultural department of the Cultural History of Russian Germans Museum in Detmold in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Below you will find 21 photos chosen by the jury. They show sites from six Ukrainian regions: Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kherson, Odesa Oblasts, and Kyiv. The contest winners are divided into 5 categories: “Residential monuments”, “Industrial monuments”, “Religious monuments”, “Other monuments”, and “Monuments destroyed by war”. 

Residential monuments

First place

The first place in the “Residential monuments” category was given to a photo of the house of Peter D. Shultz in Dolynske village (Kronstal and Neu-Osterwick), Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The house is not officially listed as a monument. The photo was taken by Oleksandr Malyon.

Rudi Frizen’s book “Mennonite Architecture. From the past to the future” mentions that the house was built between 1912 and 1914 by Peter Shultz, Dietrich Shultz’s son who was the founder of the “D.B. Shultz & Erben” factory. He was managing the factory then.

According to the book the building: “was heated with hot water, there was water supply and toilets. A factory steam engine produced electricity for the lightning. There was a kitchen, laundry room and servants’ quarters on the ground floor. The large veranda leads to the yard. There was a large balcony that was facing the street on the first floor. The house is built with locally produced brick and lavishly decorated above the windows with pointed and flat arches. The attic above the first floor is semicircular in the centre just like on the town administration building in Khortytsia. There is a small house decorated with brick ornaments behind the building, where carts were kept. The original tiled roof was replaced with a slate one.”

The house was used to host a village council in the 1940s, then it became a kolkhoz’s property. By 1996 the building was in poor condition because of a fire.

The photo was taken on 16 October 2021.

Second place

The second place in the “Residential monument” category belongs to a series of photos of an old German house in Raiske village (Steinbach or Jakob Zawadzky’s khutir), Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The photos were taken by Kostiantyn Antonets on 30 March 2019.

The building is located on the West of the village. It is not protected as a monument officially. Kostiantyn explained his motivation for participating in this special category: “This [German heritage] is an intrinsic part of our history”.

Third place

The third place was awarded to a photo of the mansion (the house of architect Dietrich Thyssen) at Fabra Street 16 in Dnipro. It was taken by Yuri Petruniak on 1 October 2020. The mansion is a monument of local significance. It belongs to the Art Nouveau style. It was designed by D.K. Thyssen in 1905. It hosted doctor O. H. Herbilskyi’s private clinic in 1912-1919. A four-storey revenue house was built nearby around 1914 (at Fabra Street 14).

Industrial monuments

First place 

The first place in this category goes to a photo of a brewery at Himnazychna Street 36 in Kherson. It is an architectural monument of local significance. The photo was taken by Oleksandr Malyon.

The Laer brewery was built in the second half of the 19th century and provided with German equipment. The factory’s affairs started getting worse after 1921. Nowadays it is located on private land and is not functioning. The photo was taken on 24 April 2021.

Second place

The second place belongs to a photo with a view of the Shultz factory in Dolynske village (Kronstal and Neu-Osterwick), Zaporizhzhia Oblast. It was taken by Oleksandr Malyon on 16 October 2021.

The book “Mennonite Architecture. From the past to the future” mentions that the factory was built between 1880-1885. It manufactured various agricultural equipment, including winnowing machines. Since 1893 the factory has been known as “D.B. Shultz & Erben” factory, because the co-owner Peter Kopp’s sons started working with him after Dietrich married his widow. The office building was added, and when Dietrich died, his son Peter D. Shultz took over the business in 1908. Around 1910 a first floor was added to the south wing. It was around that time when a tower was built at the transition between the wings. Jakob D. Shultz, Peter’s younger brother, became its owner in 1914. The factory was later nationalised.

The factory was described as: “(…) built of dark brick with beautiful masonry and large semicircular windows decorated with arched ornaments. The two-storey wing’s windows are in an irregularly shaped arch, the colour of the bricks and the details of the ornament are in perfect harmony. The building is made of the same bricks as other buildings in the village.It can be an evidence that locally produced bricks were used. The tower at the transition between the wings was damaged during the Civil War, but it was rebuilt later. The roof ridge, which used to go from north to south, was redirected to an east-west. The attic of the office building was destroyed, and the metal roof was replaced with an asbestos-cement one”.

Since 1996, a part of the factory building has been used for seed cleaning. The building is not officially protected by the state.

Third place

Two works from Zaporizhzhia Oblast share the third place. They show Duban’s mill in Tokmak and Gerhard Walla’s glass factory in Polohy.

Photo of the Duban (Jakob Vall’s) mill in Tokmak was taken by Serhii Onkov on 17 July 2021. The building is located on the territory of a cannery and is not protected by the state, even though it is an architectural monument of the German Mennonites. More photos of the city’s sights can be found on the participant’s blog here. Tokmak itself is temporarily occupied by Russian troops. Serhii wrote that he took part in the special category because he had “several photos of German heritage, but the images of them are not on the official lists”.

The photo that shows Gerhard Walla’s glass factory in Polohy city in Zaporizhzhia Oblast was taken by Kostiantyn Antonets on 20 April 2019. The factory can be also found as Sandomyrskyi brothers’ glass factory and Jakob Walla’s glass factory. The building is not protected. The city has been occupied by Russian troops since 6 March 2022. 

Religious monuments

First place

The series of photos taken by Faina Zelenaya on 29 November 2020 are in the first place. They depict the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Lymanske village, Odesa Oblast.

The Holy Trinity Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral of the German Kandel community, an architectural monument of local significance. It was built in 1892 from the most widespread limestone in the Northern Black Sea region instead of bricks like the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in nearby Zelts. Both Kandel and Zelts now form the Lymanske village. Odesa’s German colonists organised a rebellion against the grain requisitioning and mobilisation into the Red Army in the summer and autumn of 1919. After the troops of Denikin’s Volunteer Army came to the south of Ukraine, the Germans created a special colonist unit that significantly weakened the forces of the Red Army. After the resistance was crushed, the cathedral was closed, along with the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Zelts. It is currently in ruins.

During the Soviet period, the building was used as a granary, but later there was a severe fire inside, which completely destroyed the cathedral – the roof collapsed, and only the walls and columns remained. Nowadays it is used as a coal warehouse for a local boarding school.

Second place 

The second place in the category was awarded to the photo of the German church in the Tersianka village (Myrne Pole / Feidenfeld), Zaporizhzhia Oblast. It was taken by Kostiantyn Antonets on 24 October 2020.

The German church in Tersianka was built at the expense of the local community. The construction committee involved local pastor Friedrich Hamann, starosta Shneider, landowner Muller and others. The architect Turovets was the head of the committee. The church was officially opened on 5 June 1911 and functioned until the autumn of 1934. The last pastor was arrested and shot, and German families were moved to Kazakhstan. The building was rebuilt to host a cinema there, and the interior of the church was changed into a cinema hall with a stage, foyer, and back rooms. The building looks like a Lutheran church from the outside. Later there was a village cultural centre here. It is not protected as a monument.

Third place

The third place belongs to a photo of the Mennonite house of worship in Mykolai-Pole village (Mykolaifeld), Zaporizhzhia Oblast. It was taken by Oleksandr Malyon on 15 October 2021.

The village was founded in 1870 by German colonists. There is data that in 1886 the German colony of Mykolaifeld hosted 199 people in 33 households, there was a Mennonite prayer house, school and wheel factory. The building does not have official status as a monument.

Other monuments

First place

There are two photos in the first place in this category. The first one shows a view of the palatial ensemble (estate) in Sharivka, Kharkiv Oblast, and the second one shows the interior of this palace. The photo was taken by Oleksandr Malyon on 16 May 2021.

The palatial ensemble in Sharivka is a complex of architectural monuments of national importance. Olkhovsky landowners, the Gebenstreiter brothers from Germany, the Koenigs owned the estate (palace, park, service buildings, etc.). The ensemble of the estate was finally formed by its last owners – Leopold Koenig (“sugar king”) and his son Julius in 1881-1917. Its territory grew to 70 hectares.

In 1923 the estate passed into the possession of Sverdlov Sovkhoz. From 1925 to 2010 a specialised tuberculosis sanatorium was located on the territory of the complex, which functioned until 2008. All patients were transferred from there to a dispensary in the Zmiiv district in early 2009. Renovation was planned, but the budget was not assigned. The municipal enterprise “Znakhidka” is supposed to support the palace financially.

The park’s focal point is a two-storey castle-palace built on a high hill. The Gothic-style exterior and interiors were luxurious and partially preserved: tiled stoves, murals and intricate mouldings, dark oak panels, and a wooden grand staircase. This palace is one of the oldest monuments of palatial architecture in Ukraine.

The photo of the interior was taken by Volodymyr Bondar on 30 April 2018.

There are 26 rooms and three halls in the palace. A large living room, study and oak-lined library lounge, former billiard room (on the ground floor), grand staircase, large ballroom and some living rooms (on the first floor) are located in the central part of the palace, which is marked by two towers. It is the central part of the palace that has retained its stunning decoration. Murals, ceiling lamps, white and pink marble fireplaces, stoves decorated with painted tiles, wooden carvings preserved both on the main staircase and in the library, which was a billiard room during Baron Koenig’s time. 

Second place 

The photo of Zaborovskyi’s Gate in Kyiv received second place in this category. The photo was taken by Ihor Vynnychenko on 20 July 2012.

The gate is a part of The National Sanctuary Complex “Sophia of Kyiv”, a complex of national significant monuments of urban planning, architecture and history, as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Zaborovskyi’s Gate is a western main entrance to the residence of the Kyiv metropolitans from the metro station “Zoloti Vorota”. It is one of the most outstanding examples of Ukrainian Baroque. It was built in 1746 during large-scale restoration and construction works on the territory of Sophia of Kyiv, probably by the architect of North German origin Johann Gottfried Schädel. Metropolitan Raphael Zaborovsky of Kyiv commissioned it. He was an art adept and lover, after whom the monument is named. From 2007 to 2009 the building was reconstructed in its original form with special permission from UNESCO.

Third place

Oleksandr Malyon won the third place for his series of photos depicting a German school in Mykolai-Pole (Mykolaifeld) village, Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

There was an agricultural school, and later after collectivization, kolkhoz’s school. Nowadays, the building is used as a secondary school. The building is not protected as a monument.

Monuments destroyed by war

First place

The photo of the Lutheran Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Zmiivka (Klosterdorf (Kostyrka), Schlangendorf (Zmiivka), and Mühlhausendorf) in Kherson Oblast, received the first place. The photo was taken by Serhii Onkov on 20 July 2020.

The church was damaged by Russian shelling on 5 January 2024.

Second place

The second place in this category goes to a photo of the House of Johann Heinrich Jantzen on Shevchenko Street in Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia region. The photo was taken by Kostiantyn Antonets on 7 January 2020.

The House of Heinrich Jantzen is a mansion of late 19th century architecture that hosts the Orikhiv Municipal Council. The two-storey brick building draws attention with its sophisticated decor, in which various architectural elements are expertly combined.

Heinrich Jantzen was one of the Mennonite Germans who moved to the southern part of Ukraine. Members of this family built a steam mill, a hospital, and a school for Mennonite children in the town, and participated in the building of trade shops and a cinema. Heinrich Jantzen was the town’s first mayor and was permanently elected to this position in Orikhiv for 25 years (from 1874 to 1899). The building is not protected as a monument.

On 21 May 2022, the house was damaged by Russian shelling. The walls of the first floor and the roof partially collapsed, the front door was destroyed, and the walls were cut by debris.

Third place

The third place was given to the emblematic monument, the Shredder’s mill “Nadiia” (“Hope” in Ukrainian) built in 1894 in Huliaipole city, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The photo was taken by Serhii Onkov on 18 July 2021.

The “Nadiia” mill was built by the design and construction firm of entrepreneur Anton Erlanher. After that it belonged to the merchant Samson Saksahanskyi, and since 1908 – to the Mennonite David Shredder, and since 1915 to the “Keimakh” Association. The building was used as a mill in the Soviet Union and before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The building has not changed much since it survived the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 and the Second World War, but it was severely damaged by the Russian occupiers. It was damaged on 22 June 2022 by Russian shelling, and destroyed by a Russian strike on 17 February 2024 at night. The first photos of the destroyed mill were posted by historian Serhii Zvilinskyi in the facebook group “Huliaipole Antiquities”.

All the photos in the special category from 2023 can be found on Wikimedia Commons.

For reference:

The Council of Germans of Ukraine (CGU) is the main coordinating organisation representing the interests of ethnic Germans in Ukraine. More about the Council can be found on the website.

For context:

• The special category page on Wikipedia
• Wikimania 2024 poster on special categories of Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine contest

To prepare this publication, materials were used from the Wikipedia articles “Holy Trinity Cathedral in Lymanske”, “German church in the Tersianka”, “Mykolai-Pole in Zaporizhzhia Oblast”, “Park in Sharivka”, “Sharivka Palace”, “Zaborovskyi’s Gate” and “House of Heinrich Jantzen”.