Bringing History to Life: Creating Oleksandra Radchenko’s Room

Museum of State Terror

Oct 3

2 min read

Volunteer Danya Teslenko assembling a wooden table for the Oleksandra Radchenko exhibition at the Museum of State Terror.

Work continues at the Museum of State Terror as we recreate the interior of a traditional Ukrainian home from the 1930s for an exhibition dedicated to Oleksandra Radchenko — a Ukrainian teacher whose diaries preserved her personal testimony of the Holodomor of 1932–1933.

In 1945, Oleksandra Radchenko was sentenced to ten years in Soviet forced labour camps on charges of anti-Soviet activity. Her diaries survived by chance, preserved in the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) as evidence in her criminal case. They were not published until the early 2000s.

Volunteer Danya Teslenko standing beside the newly assembled wooden table in the museum's developing exhibition space.

We want to create a space where visitors can discover her story not only through documents and photographs, but also through the atmosphere of everyday life at that time.

This week, our volunteer Danya Teslenko helped transport and assemble a wooden table for the future exhibition. It may seem like an ordinary piece of furniture, but for us, it marks another important step in bringing the museum space to life.

Concept visualization of a traditional 1930s Ukrainian home interior with embroidered textiles, a wooden table and a decorated window.

The interior is gradually taking shape. We are working on the window, selecting traditional Ukrainian embroidered textiles, furniture, and household objects that will help recreate the atmosphere of a Ukrainian home.

Every detail brings us closer to creating a space where one woman's testimony becomes part of a much larger history — the history of the Holodomor, Soviet repression, and the courage of those who preserved the truth.

We are doing this now, while Ukraine is at war. While people in Oleshky are going hungry. While elderly people are freezing in their own homes. And children are being killed by Russian missiles.

Oleksandra Radchenko left behind testimony of the crimes committed by the Soviet authorities. Then, it was the Soviet state. Today, it is the Russian state.

Exhibition poster telling the story of Oleksandra Radchenko, alongside the process of recreating a traditional 1930s Ukrainian room at the Museum of State Terror.