For more than nine months now, our armed forces, medics and volunteers have been writing the modern history of Ukraine, repelling the enemy and saving our fellow citizens. The fierce struggle continues: on the ground and in the sky, we are not losing ground. Everyone is defending their own front: military, volunteer, humanitarian. Everyone now has their own weapon, and for some this weapon is art. Moreover, art and culture especially nourish the spirit, inspire, and also affirm and popularize the Ukrainian. After all, this war is a struggle for Ukrainian identity, independence, its own culture and history. For everything that makes a state a state. Mass destruction of cultural sites is a sign of genocide of everything Ukrainian. Preserving and enhancing the national heritage is an extremely important mission that defines our identity.

The exhibition “Baidaktar’s perspective. Khmelnytskyi Region in the Photographs of Ihor Baidak” draws attention to cultural monuments in different parts of the Khmelnytskyi region: Kamianets-Podilskyi, Samchyky, Medzhybizh, Letychiv, Sataniv, Starokostiantyniv, Chornyi Ostriv, Zinkiv, Pidlisnyi Mukariv, and others. The exhibition includes photographs taken by the author this year with a smartphone, without further special processing in a photo editor.

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Ihor Baidak is a journalist, local historian, poet, photographer, and collector.

He was born on April 27, 1965, in Khmelnytskyi.

Member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.

Member of the Khmelnytskyi City Literary and Artistic Union “Podillia”.

Laureate of the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi City Prize (2009).

He graduated from school No. 64 in Kecskemet, Hungary (1972-1982).

Before joining the army, he worked at the Temp plant in Khmelnytskyi.

In 1983-1990, he served in the Armed Forces of the USSR – in the Pacific Fleet in a reconnaissance brigade.

Since 1990, he has been living in Khmelnytskyi again.

In 1990-2003, he worked in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Khmelnytskyi region, in particular, as a senior inspector of the public relations center.

In 1997, he graduated from the History Department of Vinnytsia State Pedagogical Institute (by correspondence).

Later he worked as a journalist: in the editorial offices of the newspapers “Vsim”, “Moia hazeta”, and as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Podilska Khronika”.

Currently, he works in a travel agency. As a tour guide, he has developed a number of author’s tours in the Khmelnytskyi region.

For many years, he has been engaged in local history research, studying both the history of Khmelnytskyi and the Khmelnytskyi region.

He is the author of about fifteen books, including the local history guidebook “Paths of the Native Land” (2008), “Sataniv – Legend, City – Resort” (2007), and “Khmelnytskyi Excursion”.

He has published four sets of tourist postcards, namely: “Ploskyriv – Proskuriv – Khmelnytskyi”, “Tourist Khmelnytskyi”, etc.

Author’s excursion routes in Khmelnytskyi were developed and implemented: “City over the Buh”, “Meeting Nature”, “Monuments to Khmelnytskyi”, etc. 

For five years in a row, students of the school No. 10 have received cash prizes from the Baidak Tour travel company for the best achievements in the subject of History of Ukraine.

During the period of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, I. Baidak has been conducting weekly volunteer walking tours of Khmelnytskyi for internally displaced persons. 

In June of this year, in the artistic courtyard of the Mykola Mozhovyi Music School No. 1, I. Baidak opened a personal photo exhibition of local history – “We are from Ukraine”. 

This year, the author’s first book on military and patriotic themes, “Baidaktar”, was published, in which the author ridicules the absurdity of the enemy’s actions and behavior, and admires the courage and ingenuity of Ukrainians.

The exhibition will run for a month.