The project involves the publication of an interactive album in partnership with Greek developers and the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation

Pixelated Realities PO in partnership with the Greek company TALENT ANONYMOS ETAIRIA PLIROFORIKIS S.A. (Talent S.A.), has launched the implementation of the international project “Crossectoral Research Platform of Cossack Crosses in Odesa” with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation under the “Cultural Heritage” competition programme.

The initiative is aimed at researching, documenting and reactualising the Kuialnyk Cossack cemetery in Odesa as a site of Ukrainian heritage that for a long time experienced colonial appropriation and displacement from public memory.

The key outcome will be an open digital platform featuring an interactive map of the cemetery, a structured database and the ability to work with 2D and 3D materials. The database will bring together at least 85 objects, including the existing materials of the Kuialnyk Catalogue and new results of field research, which will result in the publication of an interactive album about the stone Cossack crosses of Kuialnyk in Ukrainian and English.

During the implementation of the project, an open cross-sectoral digital platform will be created, combining academic research, digital technologies, international cooperation and modern tools of cultural communication. It concerns the formation of a sustainable infrastructure of access to knowledge about the stone Cossack crosses of the Kuialnyk necropolis: their historical value, material characteristics, symbolism and place in Ukrainian memorial culture.

The Kuialnyk cemetery is one of the largest preserved Cossack necropolises in Ukraine and an important testament to the continuity of the Ukrainian presence in the South. In the context of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, the project takes on special significance as an instrument of deconstructing colonial myths, restoring historical justice and affirming the Ukrainian narrative about Odesa and the South of Ukraine.

Within the project, a new stage of in-situ surveys and digital documentation of 61 graves of the cemetery will be carried out. Of these, 11 crosses will be digitised in 3D using photogrammetry, and another 50 objects will receive detailed photographic documentation. All collected materials will be accompanied by scholarly annotations, as well as metadata and paradata in EDM format, compatible with the European standards for describing cultural heritage of Europeana.

The technological partner of the project is the Greek company Talent S.A., which provides the Repox Store platform for cloud storage, description and visualisation of digital cultural heritage data. Within the partnership, the partner will provide IT support for the platform’s implementation, the introduction of a metadata system, access configuration, and free support of the solution for two years.

The international project “Cross-Sectoral Platform for Research on Cossack Crosses of Odesa” is implemented by Pixelated Realities PO in partnership with TALENT S.A. with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.