Mykolaiv-based designer Oleksandr Yermolaev and his team are recreating buildings that were destroyed by Russian shelling with LEGOs.

The project, called MiNiMISTO, was born before the full-scale war, during the quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic. Initially, Oleksandr Yermolaev wanted to popularize only Mykolaiv, but after the full-scale invasion, he expanded the project and began to recreate buildings destroyed by Russian troops throughout Ukraine.

“In the first days of the full-scale war, of course, it was not about LEGO, it was all wrapped up. But over time, sitting in the corridor, I realized that we need to use our tools to show the war crimes committed by Russians on our land.” – said Yermolaev.

Among the buildings recreated by Oleksandr are the Mykolaiv Regional Council, the Mariupol Drama Theater, the buildings of destroyed Bakhmut and Kherson, the Kharkiv Regional State Administration building, and others. Due to the limited availability of LEGO parts, most of the MiNiMISTO team’s work is currently stored in electronic format.

Foto: “MiNiMISTO”