In Odessa, a discussion of pre-project proposals for the improvement of Prokhorovsky Square took place. It is planned to restore the monuments, renovate the children's and sports grounds, pavement of pedestrian paths, install new street furniture and urns, as well as carry out additional landscaping with the installation of an automatic watering system.
This was reported by the press service of Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov.
"For the past few years, we have been gradually restoring order in our parks and squares, places of military glory and memorials. Today is Prokhorovsky Square. All objects of memory of the terrible events of wartime will be concentrated here, and after tidying up, we will make the square another place of pilgrimage for tourists from all over the world," Trukhanov commented.
Prokhorovsky Square along with the Holocaust Museum on ul. Malaya Arnautskaya, 111 — memorials in Odessa for the Jewish diaspora, victims of the Holocaust and Odessans.
According to him, the small area and raw rooms in the existing museum do not allow to store exhibits in proper conditions and to open new expositions. Therefore, the Jewish diaspora turned to the mayor of Odessa with a request for assistance in creating a new museum in Prokhorovsky Square.
Here, the construction of a two-story building is planned to house the exposition of the Holocaust museum: one floor is underground, one is above ground.
"This will be an interactive museum, where there will be a large number of expositions and exhibits. The estimated construction cost is about 20 million hryvnias. In fact, this is such an international project. We have a lot of support in the world. A lot of Odessans who survived the Holocaust emigrated abroad, and their loved ones remained lying in our city in powder warehouses and on many of our streets, where they were shot or hanged," said Pavel Kozlenko, director of the Odessa Holocaust Museum.
The customer for the construction of the museum in Prokhorovsky Square is the Odesa Regional Association of Jews — former prisoners of the ghetto and Nazi concentration camps. Construction is planned to be carried out within the boundaries of existing underground structures.
"Only that nation, that country can be called civilized, which shows respect for its memory, history, those significant dates and places that remind us that similar events should never happen again," said the mayor of Odessa.
