I appreciate this and the extraordinary photos of Ukrainian heritage that came out of past years' contests, one of the fruits of which is sitting on my wall.
❤️🩹⚡🌼, SJ 🌍🌏🌎🌑 On Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 10:46 AM Olga Milianovych < olga.milianov...@wikimedia.org.ua> wrote: > Hi all, > > On behalf of the organizing team for Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine I’m > writing to inform you of our decision not to submit photos for the > international round. > > Traditionally, Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine has been one of the biggest > WLM local contests in the world, as well as among the biggest projects > supported by Wikimedia Ukraine. > > This year, Ukraine and subsequently the contest has suffered from Russia’s > full-scale invasion. Particularly, for security reasons the organizers had > to limit submissions only to photos taken before February 24th, 2022, which > is the date when Russia openly invaded Ukraine. > > Despite the limitations, we managed to organize the contest in 2022 and > attract almost 14,000 photos of Ukrainian cultural heritage from almost 300 > participants. They illustrate over 5,300 monuments, including 351 monuments > depicted for the first time. > > However, the local organizers will not be submitting Ukrainian photos for > the international round because of the international organizers’ decisions > to accept photos from Russia on the international stage. To be clear, we do > not support this decision and had asked the international team not to > accept Russian photos in the international round. > > While we fully support the spread of free knowledge in various forms, we > believe that it is not appropriate to promote on the international level > photos from the country that wages a brutal war against Ukraine, kills > thousands of Ukrainians – and systematically destroys and steals Ukrainian > cultural, architectural and archaeological monuments. > > Besides, Russia’s war has deprived Ukrainian photos of equal conditions in > the competition. While daily life in Russia continues largely as normal, > Ukrainian photographers have had to operate in extremely difficult > conditions and under many limitations – both the formal ones imposed for > security reasons and the overall situation in Ukraine (power blackouts, > problems with internet connectivity, personal hardship etc.) > > Therefore, we cannot accept Ukrainian photos competing alongside Russian > ones – we do not think that in current circumstances it is the right thing > to announce which Ukrainian photos are better and which are worse than > Russian ones. > > We are grateful to Ukrainian participants and volunteers who have made the > contest possible this year against the odds, as well as to international > organizers for their hard work in supporting the largest photo contest in > the Wikimedia ecosystem. > > Best regards, > Olga Milianovych > Member of the organizing committee for Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine > > (Disclaimer: Antanana is a member of the Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine > organizing committee. Due to her currently serving on the Wikimedia > Foundation Board of Trustees she recused herself from taking part in > discussions and making decisions on this topic). > _______________________________________________ > Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list > To unsubscribe send an email to > wikilovesmonuments-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
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