You're reading: Kyiv’s Ukrainian House occupied by opposition will house press center, catering point

Protesters in Kyiv plan to use the Ukrainian House, which law enforcers left in the early hours of Sunday, as a place for warming up and taking meals, commandant of the house Oleksiy Yakushevsky said.

“I believe that it will accommodate a press center for journalists,
and also a place for feeding and warming up hundreds of people whom we
cannot accommodate in the Trade Union House,” he said to
Interfax-Ukraine on Sunday morning.

He stressed that access to the fourth and fifth floors containing the
holdings and archives of the Museum of the History of Kyiv will remain
closed as the museum’s valuables are located there.

Meanwhile, the museum curator said that an act had been signed
between representatives of the museum and the commandant under which the
opening of the doors to the museums was recorded.

After signing the act the commandant promised to seal off entry to the repository and guard it.

Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Center for the development of
museum affairs Vladyslav Pioro told Channel 5 that museum employees had
been the first to enter the floors with the assets of the Museum of the
History of Kyiv after law enforcers had left it.

“They found that the seals on the doors of the museums’ premises were
opened, and the seals on some of the boxes were also torn off. It will
be possible to tell about missing items of the museum reserves after the
audit, which may take museum employees quite a lot of time,” he said.

As was reported, to continue the negotiations with the opposition in a
peaceful way, Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko decided in the
early hours of January 26, on the withdrawal of a reserve group of law
enforcers from the Ukrainian House, which was surrounded and blocked by
protesters.

Presently activists continue clearing the premises from broken glass
and litter. They are fixing broken windows with pieces of plywood and
fabric.

Several dozen protesters are resting in the second and third floors.

The situation on Hrushevskoho Street which has been the epicenter of the clashes in Kyiv for a week remains steadily clam.