Ukrainian to be added to audio guides at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with evacuated Ukrainian students helping with translation
Feb. 9, 2023
by Fumiyasu Miyano, Staff Writer
On February 16, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (in the city’s Naka Ward) will add Ukrainian to portable audio guides available for visitors to rent. The museum decided to add the language after the Ukrainian embassy in Japan, following Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Hiroshima in May last year, made the proposal, saying many Ukrainians would visit the museum after the war. Ukrainian students who have fled to Japan from Russia’s invasion cooperated with the translation.
The portable audio guides now provide 14 languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese and Russian. The rental fee is 400 yen per unit. Visitors can listen to explanations about 64 permanent exhibits, such as A-bombed artifacts left by A-bomb victims, through earphones.
According to the museum, after the conclusion of the Summit Meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations (the G7 Hiroshima Summit) in May last year, to which Mr. Zelenskyy was invited, the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan, in a letter, offered full cooperation if the museum were to add Ukrainian to its audio guides. Upon request, teaching staff and 12 Ukrainian students studying at the Japan University of Economics in Dazaifu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, took charge of the translation. Denys Vushnia, an opera singer from Ukraine, provided the narration.
Svitlana Redko, 20, a junior at the university, said she hoped visitors to the museum would pray for victims and learn from history so they would never repeat the same atrocious incident. The museum’s curatorial division said they hoped the day would come soon when Ukrainians learn about the A-bombed city of Hiroshima in Ukrainian.
(Originally published on February 9, 2023)
On February 16, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (in the city’s Naka Ward) will add Ukrainian to portable audio guides available for visitors to rent. The museum decided to add the language after the Ukrainian embassy in Japan, following Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Hiroshima in May last year, made the proposal, saying many Ukrainians would visit the museum after the war. Ukrainian students who have fled to Japan from Russia’s invasion cooperated with the translation.
The portable audio guides now provide 14 languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese and Russian. The rental fee is 400 yen per unit. Visitors can listen to explanations about 64 permanent exhibits, such as A-bombed artifacts left by A-bomb victims, through earphones.
According to the museum, after the conclusion of the Summit Meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations (the G7 Hiroshima Summit) in May last year, to which Mr. Zelenskyy was invited, the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan, in a letter, offered full cooperation if the museum were to add Ukrainian to its audio guides. Upon request, teaching staff and 12 Ukrainian students studying at the Japan University of Economics in Dazaifu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, took charge of the translation. Denys Vushnia, an opera singer from Ukraine, provided the narration.
Svitlana Redko, 20, a junior at the university, said she hoped visitors to the museum would pray for victims and learn from history so they would never repeat the same atrocious incident. The museum’s curatorial division said they hoped the day would come soon when Ukrainians learn about the A-bombed city of Hiroshima in Ukrainian.
(Originally published on February 9, 2023)
