Upwards 4,000 works of art have been destroyed in a fire as it ran through the National Art Gallery in Abkhazia, Georgia's breakaway region. This marks a devastating loss of cultural heritage encompassing decades of history regarding the Black Sea Caucasus region's separation.
Lasting Cultural Damage of the Fire at the Abkhazia Art Gallery
According to the regional news outlet Ekho Kavkaza, associated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the fire had started on Jan. 21 at a bank in the region's capital city of Sukhumi, before it spread to the art gallery belonging to the Union of Artists of Abkhazia.
It is where the artworks were housed and ultimately burned. The building has been subpar for years and has been without "a roof or doors," as per the publication.
A video shared by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to X (formerly Twitter) shows the aftermath of the incident, where firefighters and civilians scavenged through the wreckage and retrieved the ashed remains of the paintings.
In a statement regarding the cultural tragedy, Abkhazia's acting culture minister Dinara Smyr said: "The entire golden fund of Abkhazian artists is under threat."
The National Gallery's Director Suram Sakaniya told the regional news outlet that there are only around "100 to 200" paintings, dated to the Soviet era, that have survived the fire. That said, over half sustained either burns or physical damages.
He continued by saying that the ceramic artifacts held by the institution have also succumbed to the fire and have cracked from the intense heat, alongside "bronze statuettes and sculptures" that have essentially melted.
As reported by local publication JAMnews, 300 Aleksandr Chachba-Sharvashidze works have also been lost to the fire.
This particular artist was an acclaimed forerunner of Abkhazian art as he is the first to be recognized internationally, even collaborating with masters such as Alexandre Benois and Pablo Picasso during his stint as a stage designer across Russian and French theaters.
Culture Minister Smyr described the obliteration of his works as akin to sustaining irrevocable damage to "Abkhazia's national culture."
