Culture

Marazli Club. Why an Odessa lover should become a Member

Marazli Club. Why an Odessa lover should become a Member
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Marazli Club is a public organisation aimed at supporting and developing the Odessa Fine Art Museum (OFAM). The membership fees are a financial instrument providing, for the first time in modern Ukraine's history, a cultural institution with a permanent fund for its sustainable development.


The former City Museum of Fine Arts (now the Odessa Fine Art Museum) was opened in 1899 thanks to the efforts of the Society of Fine Arts. The museum building was donated to the city by the public personality Grigoriy Marazli. Wealthy and well-known people in the city joined the Society of Fine Arts and the Museum at various times, such as General Prince Semyon Vorontsov, architect and teacher Franz Morandi, Professor of Medicine Nikolay Sklifosofsky, Grand Count Michael Tolstoy, Governor-General Pavel Kotsebu, merchant and politician Grigoriy Marazli and many others. The Society of Fine Arts is an important example in the history of Odessa's cultural development. Local elites, supporting the development of culture and the arts, laid the foundation for the transformation of the city into a metropolis and a major centre of cultural life in Russian empire.

In the autumn of 1899, the Odessa Fine Arts Museum received its first visitors. 120 years later, people who care about the museum and its fate come together to help the museum preserve its unique collection and promote domestic art among citizens and internationally.

Marazli Club is a public organisation whose activities are aimed at supporting and developing the Odessa Fine Arts Museum. The use of membership fees as a financial instrument will provide, for the first time in the history of modern Ukraine, a cultural institution with a permanent fund for sustainable development. A guarantee for a successful future of OFAM.

Society is almost accustomed to constant change and turbulence in business. The same processes befall cultural institutions. But in our case, there are neither the resources to maneuver nor the financial buffer to mitigate the negative effects of economic and political change.

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Svyatoslav Vakarchuk became a member of Marazli Club
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Marazi Club Pin

What exactly the club's money will be used for

  • Current repairs of office premises
  • Emergency work in the museum
  • Equipment and materials for the restoration workshops
  • Update the material base
  • Mobility of researchers, providing opportunities to participate in conferences
  • Expenditures on advertising of museum projects and popularization of the collection
  • Support for digitalization of work processes and digitization of the collection
  • Support of museum exhibition projects

Club memebers receives:

  • Free entrance to the museum
  • Free entrance to all museum events
  • Participation in special previews of exhibitions
  • Invitations to special curatorial and author's excursions
  • Invitations to private meetings with collectors, artists and art leaders

How to become a Marazli Club member:

  • Fill in the registration form
  • Or contact us by phone +380 93 552 95 10 and wait for a letter or a call from a museum representative
  • Transfer the membership fee of 30,000 â‚´ to the account of the public organization
  • Receive a club member card and relevant privileges from us
  • Participate in the development of the museum, in gatherings and consultative meetings
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The state guarantees partial provision of the minimum wage fund and partial coverage of utility costs. The development of the museum depends only on you and me. Wherever you live, whatever you are interested in, join the community of fans of change in the cultural life of Odessa!

Participation in the Marazli club is renewed annually. For joining the Marazli Club at the Odessa Art Museum, please contact: [email protected]

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