Ark III Mobile Digitization Unit Arrives in Kyiv to Safeguard Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve officially received the Ark III mobile digitisation unit designed to help preserve Ukraine’s cultural heritage through advanced 3D scanning and photogrammetry. With the handover, the Ark for Ukraine initiative, which was recognised by the Stanford Social Innovation Review as one of 2025’s most inspiring projects, enters a new stage.

The Ark for Ukraine project is part of the “Support Ukrainian Culture” international initiative, launched by the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine in cooperation with the National Museum of the Czech Republic and in partnership with the Karel Komárek Family Foundation (KKFF).

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, hundreds of Ukraine’s cultural sites - including museums, libraries, and churches - have been damaged or destroyed. In response, the Ark project has developed a series of mobile safeguarding vehicles that can be deployed directly to at-risk cultural institutions, helping specialists preserve and digitise vulnerable objects before they are lost.

Ark III will enable Ukrainian cultural professionals to create high-precision digital copies of museum objects and heritage items held in the Lavra’s collections and other sites across the country. The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve is the largest museum complex in Ukraine and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its collections comprise over 70,000 items, including unique icon paintings, early printed books, archaeological artefacts, and sacred objects. The mobile station combines 3D scanning and photogrammetry technologies, allowing specialists to digitise both small artefacts and large-scale heritage objects directly on site.

The Ark III vehicle builds on earlier phases of the Ark project, including Ark I, which focused on emergency preservation and restoration of written heritage, including books, manuscripts, and archival material. To date, Ark I has helped rescue thousands of at-risk documents across Ukraine. Ark III builds on this cooperation, moving the project from emergency response to a systematic, technology-driven approach to safeguarding cultural memory.

The mobile digitisation station is built on a Volkswagen Crafter chassis and equipped with state-of-the-art 3D scanners and photogrammetric systems. The technological solution was developed by experts from the National Museum of the Czech Republic specifically for use in crisis conditions and areas affected by war. Following the handover, Ukrainian specialists will be trained to operate the unit which will be used on-site at the National Reserve and other museums and heritage sites across Ukraine.