THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE MUSEUM
Museum of State Terror is being created by filmmakers, historians, researchers, cultural figures, and people whose own family histories are connected to political repression, displacement, and state violence.
Together, we are building a museum that brings personal memory, historical research, documentary film, and archival evidence into a shared public space.
OLGA ANTIMONY
Director · Documentary Filmmaker
Olga Antimony is a director, screenwriter, and producer of Ukrainian background, now based in Toronto, Canada. Her work explores history, memory, political repression, war, and the lives of people caught at the center of major historical events.
She was educated in philology, film directing, and screenwriting. Part of her documentary work has focused on Soviet repression and the GULAG, as well as contemporary Ukraine and the human consequences of war.
Her work has brought her into contact with witnesses, survivors, historians, family archives, and people whose personal stories might otherwise disappear from the public record.
She is a Director of the Museum of State Terror.
BOGDAN MIKHAILETCHKO (IGUMEN NESTOR)
Orthodox Cleric · Witness to Soviet Repression
Bogdan Mikhailetchko, known in religious life as Igumen Nestor, was born into a Ukrainian family profoundly affected by Soviet repression. His father’s family was deported from Western Ukraine after the Soviet occupation; members of the family died during deportation, and his father was later arrested, sentenced to death, and imprisoned in the Soviet camp system.
Nestor himself was born in the Urals while his family was still living under the restrictions of special settlement. He grew up in an atmosphere in which the family understood that much of its history could not be spoken about openly and remained under the attention of the Soviet security services.
He later entered an Orthodox seminary, was expelled following a denunciation, continued his studies, and was eventually ordained in Riga at a time when religious life remained closely controlled by the Soviet state.
His family history — deportation, imprisonment, surveillance, religious persecution, and the long silence imposed on those who survived — gives him a deeply personal connection to the history the Museum of State Terror seeks to preserve.
IGOR SHCHUPAK, PhD
Historian · Historical Consultant
Igor Shchupak is a Ukrainian historian and educator whose work focuses on the Holocaust, Ukrainian history, and the preservation of historical memory. Through research, educational publications, and public dialogue, he helps make difficult chapters of history accessible to new generations.
He is the Director of “Tkuma” Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies and Scientific Editor at the “Orion” Ukrainian Educational Publishing Center. He is also a member of the Ukrainian-German Historical Commission, the International Auschwitz Council in Poland, and the Board of Directors of Ukrainian Jewish Encounter (UJE) in Canada. He holds the honorary title of Honored Worker of Education of Ukraine.
As Historical Consultant to the Museum of State Terror, he helps place individual stories of persecution, repression, war, and survival within their broader historical context. His expertise supports the museum’s work to preserve testimony and connect historical research with the lives of the people behind it.
NIKOLAI TERENTIEV
Performing Artist · Clown ·
Theatre Educator
Nikolai Terentiev is a performing artist, clown, mime, and theatre educator with more than five decades of experience on the international stage.
He began collaborating with Slava Polunin in the late 1960s and became part of the renowned clown-mime theatre Licedei. Over the course of his career, he has performed internationally, led his own theatrical projects, taught pantomime and clowning, and worked with Cirque du Soleil and Slava’s Snowshow.
His artistic life has been devoted to telling human stories beyond the boundaries of language — through gesture, humour, vulnerability, memory, and the direct connection between performer and audience.
The history of political repression is also part of Nikolai’s own family history: his grandfather was a victim of Soviet repression. This personal connection gives particular meaning to his involvement with the Museum of State Terror, where family memory is an essential part of preserving the history of those whose lives were altered or destroyed by the state.
GREGORY ANTIMONY
Director · Producer · Broadcaster
Gregory Antimony is a producer and broadcaster born in Ukraine and raised in Kolyma, a region deeply marked by the history of the Soviet GULAG. His personal background and professional work have given him a long-standing connection to the history of repression, displacement, and memory.
He holds a Ph.D. in neurophysiology and later worked in theatre and television, including as an assistant to director Yuri Lyubimov at the Taganka Theatre. After emigrating to the United States in 1991, he developed and produced television programming for Russian-speaking audiences and later served as CEO of NTV America.
Over the years, Gregory has produced documentary films and television projects dealing with history, culture, migration, and political repression, including GULAG. Witnesses. His work has brought him into contact with survivors, witnesses, historians, and communities shaped by twentieth-century state violence.
VERA PAVLOVA
Poet · Writer
Vera Pavlova is a poet, writer, and musicologist whose work explores memory, love, loss, family, the body, and the intimate experience of history.
Trained as a music historian, she later turned to poetry and has published more than twenty books. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages, and her poetry and librettos have inspired operas, cantatas, theatrical productions, and other musical works.
Her writing is deeply concerned with personal memory — the ways private experience, family history, and individual voices survive through language and are passed from one generation to another.
Vera brings to the Museum of State Terror a poet’s understanding of memory: not only as historical evidence, but as something preserved through words, voices, and human experience.
GENADI BEREZOVSKI
Humanitarian Advocate ·
President Ukraine War Amps
Genadi Berezovski is a Canadian humanitarian advocate and president of Ukraine War Amps (UWA), an organization established to support Ukrainians wounded and disabled as a result of war.
Since 2014, he has been involved in providing direct assistance to wounded veterans and their families, including rehabilitation support, financial assistance, and long-term help to people whose lives have been permanently changed by war. Through UWA’s work, he has developed close personal relationships with soldiers, veterans, medical professionals, volunteers, and families affected by the conflict.
His experience has given him a direct understanding of how large historical events are lived by individual people — through injury, displacement, loss, survival, and the difficult process of rebuilding a life.
At the Museum of State Terror, Genadi brings the perspective of someone who has spent years working directly with people affected by war and state violence, helping ensure that their individual experiences are preserved as part of the historical record.
FEODOR RYABOKON
Data Analist & Digital Media
Feodor Ryabokon graduated from the University of Toronto, where he studied mathematics, physics, data analysis, and digital media. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in computer science.
Since 2015, Feodor has also volunteered at the Kyiv Military Hospital, supporting wounded Ukrainian soldiers and their families — an experience that has given him a direct understanding of the human consequences of war.
At the Museum of State Terror, he serves as Secretary. His background in data, digital media, documentary production, and technology is particularly valuable to the Museum’s administrative, digital, and archival development.