Donetsk, May 10 — DAN. The Art-Donbass museum in Donetsk has unveiled the “Viktoria’s Diary” exhibition which features portraits of fighters who helped liberate the region from Ukrainian gunmen, museum director Yekaterina Kalinichenko said on Wednesday.
“Art-Donbass has opened the exhibition as part of Day of the Republic celebrations, ” Kalinichenko told the Donetsk News Agency. “It also prepared a virtual exhibition of 16 portraits of Donbass defenders produced by Viktoria Kozlova, 14, during the operation to liberate the Pavlovka village in the Maryinka district in the spring of 2022. At that time, the girl and her family were hiding from Ukrainian army artillery attacks in their house cellar.”
Viktoria used color pencils to create her artworks choosing a different color for each portrait. She has been keen on drawing since the age of eight and attended art classes. She has participated in Art-Donbass’ contests of children’s drawings since 2017. After the liberation of her village, she drew portraits of Russian servicemen who had been bringing food to her family.
Most of the portraits are signed; they also show the names of servicemen’s native places such as Khakasia, Donetsk, Makeyevka, Chuvashia, Krasnoyarsk, Primorye, Belgrad etc. The girl did not write the fighters' names or callsigns, just the date when the portrait was drawn. “If fighters’ relatives recognize them, we’re ready to pass them these portraits, ” the museum director said.
Viktoria and her family have moved to Vladimir where the young artists continues her visual art studies.*jk