I have always been interested in origin. The origin of success, the fate of a man that we refer to as “born under a lucky star”.
Where is the origin of a spring, which is rising, accumulating power, and transforms into the full river of life? What does it take on its way not to make its water dirty and preserve its good taste to please anybody who wants to drink from it? What “junk” does it deny unmistakably feeling that it is cunning and not wanted in life? Which inflows give it strength and energy? Whom does it make its companions?
I have always wondered how a human is being formed. Where do his spiritual generosity and genuine decency grow from? How, upon reaching the top, he does not occupy his place on the Olympus without even looking down at other people. What helps him to preserve his humanity?
This is the basis. It nourishes everything else (success, love, achievements). Strong and powerful. It lets him confidently go forward. I am interested in the origins of a Soul. As everything begins with it. And I already know: today I am going to talk to Sergiy Tsiupko – a successful businessman, a famous philanthropist, the president of the Jewellers Association of Ukraine, the founder of the Museum of Modern Art of Ukraine, one of those whose river of life has not been polluted; which has accumulated its power due to the strength of spirit and diligence, perseverance and endurance.
For he has educated himself consciously. And his hobbies played an important role in this.
“Beekeeping has suddenly become my great passion”
As far as I know, You were growing up in a very picturesque place in Sumshchyna – in Medvezhye village near Romney …
Till know I get very excited every time I come there, the harmony of forests, hills and lush fields that nature has created still fascinates me. Nature itself has taught us to love beauty, feel it, and strive to be closer to it.
Besides, childhood and my mother, I am very grateful to her, taught me to work much. It happened so that my dad had died early. Do you know what it means to be left without man’s hands in the village? Therefore, I matured very quickly. I looked after the rabbits, we had a lot of them, and then gradually I became responsible for the bee-garden, which at first we intended to sell. But a neighbour suggested my mother: “Let Sergiy take care of it, he is already 12 years old and I will help him at the beginning.” I wanted to help the family, so I agreed. I never regretted that, as suddenly beekeeping has become my great passion. And not only during my childhood. That is probably the reason why the things went on successfully: five years before finishing school, I had increased our apiary to 15 families.
During all the summer holidays I also worked as an assistant beekeeper in a collective farm, they had 200 families there, and two of us took care of them. I liked this thing so much that I studied all the books that I was recommended and which I could get, so in high school I was already quite a good bee-keeper. I liked to use my knowledge in the collective farm apiary most of all. In addition, it was run by a real professional! He had been in this business for about sixty years by that time, and he was a real huge encyclopaedia. He knew answers to all the questions! To be successful with bees, one has to be a real expert in this, know a great amount of subtleties and nuances. However, he noticed my efforts and desire to learn everything thoroughly. And when I finished school, he even suggested: “I will probably retire, and you can take the whole business into you own hands.” However, when he heard that I am going to finish school with honours, he gave me another blessing: “You must go to the capital and study.” That is what I did.
But my passion for bee farming and my work at the apiary did not pass in vain …
Yes, I have always been amazed by bees, the consistency and coordination of their work, how hard they work, the way they patiently and persistently produce honey out of the tiny portions of nectar. This – the realization of the fact that to receive the final product, one must go through a very difficult and not very quick time – was very helpful later in my business activity. Because this realization nourished patience and determination, as well as the belief that there must be some “honey” at the end of the process. Besides, this work at an apiary made my bonds with nature even tighter, I felt myself a part a living organism, governed by those wise laws, over which a human does not always think about, but which greatly influence him and his life. I am still astonished when meet, for example, people in Kiev, who, as it turns out, do not know the sequence of blossom of different plants and trees, how the trees develop, do not know the names of flowers etc. Therefore, I am grateful to my apiary for the life with nature, for the trips to fields or forest for the whole summer, for unforgettable mushrooms collecting and fishing. So we were happy to manage many things with joy.
That is the reason why I was so attached to all this, that during my studying at the Agricultural Academy in Kyiv and a few years after graduation, I had been keeping bees. Only when I started my own business, I deliberately quitted beekeeping, as I am convinced that bees need full-time involvement and responsibility. I hope when I am retired, I will return to my great passion and my favourite creatures and nature are going to cure my soul.
How could a child have enough patience to work at an apiary, which is often difficult even for adults?
I worked with such satisfaction that I lived in complete harmony with my nurslings, and practically never needed a net. And when you do everything with an open heart, with desire, without panicking (bees do not like nervous, overexcited people), a good tandem is born: bees do what they are supposed to do, and you mind your business, and everybody can enjoy a pleasant neighbourhood. There was another pleasure – both in direct and figurative sense of the word: the first honey. The first person I treated with it was my mother, I loved her very much and respected greatly (she worked at school all her life, and for 25 years she was a head teacher), and always wanted to please her somehow. Make something nice for her.
Besides, the experience I gained while working at the apiary, the patience and indefatigability, were very useful when, upon graduation from the academy, I had been working as a foreman of a tractor unit, as there you had to go through the whole process – from “A” to “Z”: from ploughing through planting to harvesting. Besides you have to deal with much older men who could be your parents and the unit consisted of 80 people. This is not just a unit, it is a real enterprise! You have to be an expert in many things, everything at once: machinery, and agronomy, and psychology, and economics. Therefore no experience in this life can be in vain.
“Sport tourism has played a crucial role in developing leadership skills”
Love of nature and the need to see it all the time, to be always in motion, gave me another hobby, which played a crucial role in my formation as a person, developing a real male character, as well as leadership qualities. I was going in for sport tourism. Our academy hosted a very strong sport tourism club, one of the strongest in Kyiv. We were working hard, preparing for hiking and ski trips. In my senior years, I was already a head teacher in this school. In spring, we took hiking tours of various difficulty – ranging from the first up to the fifth, and in winter – ski tourism: from one hundred to five hundred kilometres. During those tours, we explored Carpathian Mountains, the Crimea, Caucasus, Hibiny, the Kola Peninsula, Southern, Middle, and Polar Urals, Sayan, Altai. So, for example, in Altai you go out, step on the snow and keep skiing for 15 days! Virtually you live on the snow as you sleep on the snow in tents.
That is an extreme hobby…
Strikingly interesting and exciting, people reveal themselves very fast there and you have a chance to test yourself, your strength: physical and emotional. Because you have to be in excellent physical and psychological shape to go through such a challenge. I saw some instances when strong-looking masters of sport, weightlifters were ruined by those inevitable difficulties that arise in such trips, but very fragile tiny girls showed their inner strength and were doing really good! That is how tourism help people to reveal themselves. And, of course, I was fascinated by nature of all those places! I love it so much that when I find myself in a truly wild and therefore simply gorgeous nature, I forget about everything and for ten to twenty days, I simply enjoy this unfathomable, great and eternal beauty. Then I forget about everything, switch to another mood. Once I had a group from all over Ukraine (and I was originally an average tourist, and then a team leader), and there was a friend from Kyiv, and I was so involved in all this, that when he asked me to write my home address I have … forgotten it! Thirty days in the trip had “erased” everything!
Of course, it was not easy to coordinate everything with studying at the academy as the vacation lasted not so long, especially in winter, but we managed to figure out a solution and find some time for hiking.
I bet, You graduated from the academy with the diploma with honour …
No, the tours did not let me deploy my entire potential at school, and my grades varied from “A” to “C” (the latter, of course, when the subject was greatly suffering from the lack of time for its studying). However, I just could not give up tourism.
Did You join the club on your own initiative, or, as it is often the case, just followed your friends?
Initially I followed my friends, but as soon as I started, nothing could stop me.
Besides I, a child from a village, who was used to long walking (the apiary was about 15-20 km from the village) and in the morning I ran there to return in the evening, did not need any special training, at least at the beginning. Therefore, the first trip I was invited to, to the Carpathians, was really decisive: I understood that I liked it, and was going to be in tourism for a long time, I told myself. Physically, I was also fine, as I was prepared for challenges. But challenges can be different; and some of them can be really life-threatening.
Yes, and I faced it many times. Once in the Crimea we broke down while going down to the cave, we got under rock fall in Hibiny, and in the Sayan Mountains we got into the turbulent river that carried us away. However, the desire to discover yourself and the world around you had always won. In addition, tourism had given me invaluable experience of communicating with people, of their psychology knowledge, of building, respectively, relations with them. We were always mixing with different people, as even when there was no distant routes, we travelled somewhere, organized competitions, hiking weekend. When I began to lead the group, it just added another experience: a big responsibility. As when you lead some people, you are literally in charge of their lives. If, for example, in the mountains you, alas, mislead people, you can die and, what is much worse, other people can die too. Moreover, in those mountains, we saw many tablets, which notified us about this: someone had frozen to death, somebody had been covered with fog, and someone had fallen off a cliff… Ski trips are, of course, the most difficult. You have to draw not only a tent and everything you need on you, but also sleighs and skis, you also need to withstand serious frost. In the Urals, for example, an average temperature is more than minus 25 degrees at noon, and at night it fell to 34-38 below zero.
“I was very tough in the trips. Even my future wife was suffering from it. But in general women turned out to be manlier than some men… “
How can you sleep in tents on the snow out in this cold?
This is not a problem at all. If everything is well prepared, you feel very comfortable. You only need to prepare yourself psychologically, as the very idea that you will have to sleep on the snow in this cold can make you feel bad! But the real challenge was to get up the next morning and prepare a meal when you are on duty! As you have to force yourself to go out of tent to the 35-degree cold to make fire and cook something. When the water starts boiling, the whole group wakes up. Oh, it is a real challenge for a leader. Waking the group up and starting the way, especially when it is not a professional group, is the most difficult part of the job. If people are not put in the strict conditions, (it had been checked many times!), they will be getting ready all day long, find many things to do. That is the reason why I had always been very tough in those hikes and sticked to a very tight schedule. And the most interesting thing is that being in the Academy I could oversleep, miss some lectures, but during our hikes I was a completely different person: morally and physically very strong and responsible. So it’s not just a remarkably exciting sport, but also an invaluable experience in terms of character “shaping”, the crystallisation of priceless qualities which are essential in life and the most important of them is the ability to meet the challenges. You have to not just be totally responsible for the life of someone with whom you are in one bond, but also trust him completely. And there were occasions when someone had fallen down, and we were taking great risks, rescuing each other. Frankly speaking, then, perhaps, we were not completely aware of those dangers and risks, since we were young, not experienced in the luxury of life, as we are now, when we have lived some time …
By the way, I met my wife in our club…
That is what I was going to ask You about, were not those hikes and evenings by the fire the beginning of your matrimony?
You said it! My wife was also studying at our academy and was very active, and engaged in sports, and dancing, and some day she came to us and asked to take her to our hike. And it was supposed to be a ski trip to the Carpathian Mountains, so we actually met there, and in five years we got married…
You have mentioned above that a person is revealed in hikes. So, You had found some qualities in your future wife that attracted you… Or discipline had nothing to do with feelings and romance eventually won?
The romance won. However, in those hikes, I have to remind you, I was strict and demanding. And the very first day I warned everybody: “If somebody is doing a bad job, we are going down, buy him a bus ticket and send him to Kyiv!” Oh, my wife was cursing me silently! But the hikes are ruled by the same principle as in the army: the leader is always right, and if he is not, see the first rule.
Do all participants know all those rules before the beginning of the hike?
Sure they do! There were lectures at our tourism school about what one needed to know in the trip, and then we arranged overnight weekend trips, with some difficulties, which to some extent modelled situations that could arise in a serious hike. It often happened that such a training hike became the first and the last – and a person does not even want to hear about tourism anymore. It also happened that we were preparing everything for a hike (it is especially typical for winter trips): till the final day, everybody is very enthusiastic about it, and then, right before departure several people … disappear. Why? Because they were not morally ready to go. And what is the most dangerous thing, it was often the case with men! Tough, mature guys and, all of a sudden, they reveal such a weakness of spirit when it comes to business! I witnessed it many times, even before the simplest trips. That is why I pay tribute to women: they are much more enduring and strong than men.
That was how your future wife revealed herself in that hike? She scolded You, but?
She was a second-class skier and the first class athlete! And she looked physically quite decent, not worse, than we, who considered ourselves to be professionals. As for morale… We quickly figured everything out and reached mutual understanding. And the romance had played its part! We always, no matter how difficult the route was, took a guitar, as a song by the fire – it is just incredible! I did not sing, as somewhere near Medvezhye a Bear stepped on my ear (I am kidding), but there was always somebody who played guitar well in our team. And once in the Caucasus we met a group in which there were six or seven girls with guitars! I will never forget those songs and conversations by the fire! By the way, the academy always hosted parties of tourist and amateur singing, bards came to us from all over Ukraine, and it was amazing…
Besides, there must have been students’ building camps?
No, they had given way to tourist trips. But I worked at three jobs. I was a guard at the freezing factory, I was a gardener at the Exhibition of Achievements of Agriculture, I was mowing grass and gathering vegetables and fruit, and I even worked at a sand warehouse, was engaged in road construction. And those three jobs took much effort as I also had to learn and go hiking! But as a reward I had three salaries and a scholarship! Because, sport tourism, even in those days, was a very expensive hobby: flights, equipment, food. And I could not even imagine to ask somebody for the money. So I often used to fall asleep during lectures, when I came right after a night shift. But I have always wanted to be completely independent. And I came to business when life made me think how I could support my family with the salary of a senior researcher. God probably does help those who help themselves.
“A huge layer of Ukrainian art “had travelled” abroad. I wanted to return it back”
Your museum of modern art, as far as I understand, was born not only because there were funds for the purchase of exhibits…
You are absolutely right, when I started collecting pictures I had no money by the current standards. However, I have always wanted to live and work among the living, true things. When our first offices started to appear, their walls were decorated with paintings. I invited artists, consulted with them. Gradually creative community was formed: we needed each other, as creative people are always in need of financial support, because their jobs are unstable and depend on orders and purchases of paintings. I felt the desire to support and help. But when I became more familiar with the works of Ukrainian artists, I understood what a serious and talented art layer it is. But since the late eighties of the last century the trend of preservation and developing of this layer have been rather gloomy: national museums do not buy Ukrainian artists, or do so in very small quantities, and the arguments are well known: no money. Therefore, we have a whole layer of art, which during twenty to thirty years finished in the storage rooms or simply “travelled” abroad! Well, we also can find it in different cottages in Koncha Zaspa, but there nobody can see it as well. Such a gap in art! I wanted to fill it. Now I have more than four thousand works of Ukrainian artists.
I organize the collection by schools: Zakarpatye, Lviv, Odessa, Crimea, Kharkiv, Kyiv. We try to find several works of one artist, not just one, to show a snapshot of his work: what he was doing at the beginning of his career, how his style developed and evolved. And very often it happens that an artist “is woken up” by other family members: a spouse, children, grandchildren, and then we buy those works too, thus representing real artistic dynasties. In such a way, we want to show academic schools in Ukraine, and the best of their representatives and the artistic dynasties. We buy many works at auctions abroad to return to Ukraine, because there are artists, whose works are not present here at all.
The collection includes works of artists, starting from the thirties of the previous century, when many orders were from the state, but two days, as one painter remarked, artists painted for themselves. I am interested in these works, when a person painted what came from his soul. This is also usually realism, but, so to speak, more sincere, deeper, warmer. I also prefer realism, perhaps because we all had grown up on it, but the collection includes and displays all the movements that Ukrainian artists did: abstractionism, and modernism.
We pay much attention to the fact that all the regions must be represented, as in Ukraine, there is a very strong academic school of fine art and it is special and interesting in each region. Very soon we are going to organize an exhibition of the Lviv School in Lviv, partially we are going to show artistic diversity that people of Lviv, have not even suspected about. In general, our goal is to support the regional art, to show how many talented people live and create in the so-called periphery. They just need to be represented to the public, and discovered by their fellow citizens
Your Museum of Contemporary Art of Ukraine (MCAU) in Kyiv on 14 Bratska Street, despite its young age, just two years from the foundation, enjoys remarkable popularity among admirers of Ukrainian art …
However, this facility can no longer fit all the works collected, and we have built a specialized storage in compliance with all requirements for the conservation of paintings, but the collection, to my firm conviction, must work, it must be seen by many people, who, just like us, would be amazed with what they had seen and discovered. Creating our museum, we wanted to preserve the memory of people who are our national pride. For heroes live in our hearts as long as we remember them, and they serve prosperity and harmony in society. Now it is the only museum in Ukraine, which hosts paintings, drawings, sculpture, arts and crafts of different artistic schools and trends from all regions of Ukraine from 1930s up to the present.
In spring, we are going to start reconstruction and adaptation for a Museum Centre of one building in Kyiv with total area of more than four thousand square meters. One of the leading western architects who specialize in such kind of projects is making a design. Except for a few rooms designed for permanent exhibition, the centre will have two exhibition halls, a gallery, and a winter hall with a permanent exhibition of Ukrainian endemic stones with some unique samples, their weight varying from some grams to several tons. Stones are one of my hobbies! Besides, we are going to place a conference room, book kiosks, and a club cafe there. I hope, this building will be capable of hosting all the paintings collected by us all. Frankly speaking, I want to see them all together myself!
By the way, we have founded a purely artistic magazine about contemporary art, and it does not have ads, and other commercial things. We called it very eloquently – “Fine Art”. A wonderful art. Wonderful because it awakes our souls, it is ours, Ukrainian, it is oriented to the authentic and thus, revived, and it speaks to us with its special language. The main task of this magazine is to understand this language fully, expand the boundaries of communication, fill them with special energy, save someone from oblivion and bring hope. Magazine will be released twice a month and hopefully will become a centre for artistic views and impressions exchange of people, for whom the fate of modern Ukrainian art is not something ephemeral, but quite specific, worth some significant effort. And our editorial team headed by the chief editor of the magazine Lina Grybanova and the museum director Mikhail Shevchenko is sure: to notice in time, to evaluate and help to develop something real, genuine, for what we will not be ashamed in the future is a very noble mission.
Our collection includes various artists: some of them are very famous, some are not, some just wait to be returned from the oblivion. As art reflects the world, our life, our nation. It is clear that we are seriously collaborating with experts, as I trust professionals; therefore, we take special care not to let fakes penetrate the museum.
“Only beauty can make people better”
Are there any “live” pictures of artists left in the offices, or all of them have moved to the museum?
Of course, some of them remained, as our employers have become so accustomed to them that when they go to some other place, they always ask these works to be moved with them. Personally I also love antiques, and then I hang the paintings of the age, which is represented in this room.
By the way, while choosing those rare things do You follow somebody’s advice or pay attention to age and “pedigree” of the things represented?
I follow my intuition, whether I like this thing or not, and what energy it radiates. And if I do not like it, I do not buy it. I will tell you one thing: in those times people probably did not rush to live as we do now, even if they were in a hurry, they created without “acceleration”. That is the reason why there are so many things that are really made with love and desire, a master had really invested some part of his soul into his work, besides, let us not forget that only the best things have survived through centuries reaching up to the present day. And it is very difficult to insert ancient things into the modern interior, so not every designer is capable of this. As that harmony of grace and skill requires the same synthesis from us. Moreover, the same power of love – to your job, to the country where you live and its traditions.
How have You managed to preserve such a deep love to your country, despite all the depressing political calamities that take place in Ukraine?
This is probably impossible. Either it exists or it does not. So in this difficult time I just want to do something for Ukraine. This is the reason why I created the museum and founded this magazine and launch different art events. To let everybody see, read, get him disturbed, awakened. Finally let people understand that we must not steal from this country, but return things to it. And I want children to come here and warm their hearts up, because there should be something warm and good in today’s “twisted” world. I have recently organized a trip to Kyiv with visiting our museum for the students of the school in Vedmezheye. They were so happy! And so was I. Because I managed to organize such a feast of soul for them.
In fact, I am sure: if you can do something for your people and for your country – do it! Do not be cheap; do not try to save your money, time and some efforts. If you, of course, truly love the land where were born, not just declare it at a definite moment, when it is convenient to you and helps you to reach some goals. People can only become better through beauty. Recently our museum organized an exhibition dedicated to the 90th anniversary of a famous Ukrainian artist, the founder of the Crimean school of painting Valentyn Bernardskyi. A man of amazing talent and bright soul! (His father, by the way, was a priest in my native Vedmezhye, and after the exhibition I took Valentyn Danylovych there, to meet the land of his childhood…) So, this great master, the natural born painter, pointed out at the presentation of his works in our museum: “For me it is very important to realize that my work, my thoughts and feelings appeal to people and they understand me, carrying the feeling of Goodness in their soul after the exhibition. And perhaps they begin to love Nature, Human, Life more. As I draw pictures not because painting has become the meaning of my existence. I want to introduce the love of beauty and celebration of life, which I feel every moment and try to express on canvas, to all people…”
I also want to let everybody see this God-given beauty and harmony, I want everybody to be grateful to those artists who awaken our souls and sing the anthem to their native land. I want the museum to be that cathedral of soul, which only real art can create.
The precious stones I collect are also ours, Ukrainian. And in fact those stones that I have now could have left Ukraine. However, I managed to catch them! And now, when the museum is open, I want to show these amazing creations of nature to all people. And when I am asked: why are they here, why have not you taken them abroad, I am always surprised, how the habit of living immoral life has ingrained in many people! But it cannot last forever, the moment of truth sooner or later happens in everybody’s life, when you cannot hide behind the mask, when bribery and cheating do not work. You cannot cheat yourself … Let this moment come earlier, when one still has a lot of time ahead…
Ludmyla Momot
“Hobby” magazine
January 2008