“Glory to Ukraine” painted outside Russian embassy in Warsaw as part of city-backed exhibition

The words “Слава Україні!”, or “Slava Ukraini”, a popular national salute meaning “Glory to Ukraine”, have been painted in large yellow and blue letters on the pavement outside the Russian embassy in Warsaw.

The slogan is part of the Free Ukraine Gallery, an artistic initiative calling for an end to the war. It was approved by councillors in Poland’s capital and is being organised by Warsaw city hall’s culture department and the Stołeczna Estrada cultural institute.

The gallery, which is to be presented today outside the Russian embassy on Belwederska Street, will consist of two elements, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

As well as the words painted on the pavement opposite the embassy entrance, it will exhibit works of street art “calling for an end to the Russian aggression and showing the suffering of the victims of the conflict”.

The gallery is inspired by the East Side Gallery – a series of murals painted in 1990 on the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall, which remains as a permanent memorial in the German capital – as well as the tradition of socially engaged street art in Poland, its organisers say.

A more than 60-metre-long section of the pavement will be divided into segments of various sizes made available to artists to showcase their work. The gallery is the brainchild of Aleksander Kobecki, a public relations expert, and has been approved and promoted by Warsaw city councillors.

“We invite painters, graphic designers, creators of street art and graffiti, and students of art and design to get involved,” the organisers wrote in a statement last week. “Artists from Ukraine who would like to create work here are especially invited.”

Artworks will be produced using special temporary chalk-based aerosol paints provided by the organisers. The content is up to the artists, although the organisers reserve the right to refuse “vulgar or iconoclastic designs” unless artistically justified.

The gallery is not the first initiative to target the Russian embassy in Warsaw, which has been the site of regular protests since the invasion of Ukraine. Last week, demonstrators held aloft banners and photographs of the massacre in Bucha.

There have also been a petition and official application to change the address of the embassy to Defenders of Ukraine 2022 Street, without changing the name of Belwederska Street, named after Belweder Palace.

A similar proposal has been made to change the name of Plac Biskupia (Bishop Square) in Kraków, where the Russian consulate is located.

Main image credit: Facebook/Sławomir Potapowicz Wiceprzewodniczący Rady Warszawy

Ben Koschalka

Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.