Nova Kakhovka is a young town in the north of Tavria, built in the 1950s for the builders of the Kakhovka hydroelectric complex. All the buildings here were built to a unified plan, constructed in haste, and they turned out to be monotonous and unexceptional. Then Hryhorii Dovzhenko, an artist and a follower of the Boichukist school, came to the town. Together with his colleagues, Dovzhenko created 80 unique carved panels which would come to decorate the walls of every building and change the face of the town. Later the Soviet press would criticise Dovzhenko for “architectural excesses”. Today his pieces are considered to be an artistic phenomenon which contemporaries named “stone vyshyvankas”. These days, the ornaments are under threat — not just from the passage of time, but from building insulation and the “modernisation” of the facades as well. Thanks to the actions of local activists, however, the “stone vyshyvankas” are gradually being restored to the town.
