‘A great victory’: Odesa mayor reacts to UNESCO Heritage List inclusion – Saudi Gazette

‘A great victory’: Odesa mayor reacts to UNESCO Heritage List inclusion – Saudi Gazette

KYIV — In an interview with UN News, Gennady Trukhanov, the Mayor of Odesa, describes the inclusion of the historic city center and port in the UNESCO World Heritage List as a great victory, which will help in the protection of the Odesa’s cultural treasures.

Trukhanov spoke to UN News shortly after the decision was announced, on Wednesday, and explained the laborious process that led to the inclusion.

Gennady Trukhanov: We applied for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List back in 2009 and were accepted into the provisional list. But the procedure dragged on and, with the onset of the war, there was a real threat that our architectural monuments would be destroyed.

So, in the first month of the invasion by Russian troops, I turned to our Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs, in order to apply for the accelerated inclusion of our historical center and port in UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

We are very grateful to UNESCO for its support. We held a lot of meetings online, and UNESCO provided us with consultants who helped us to complete our dossier correctly. Almost every day we were in close contact with them and, without their support and legal advice, it would have