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A museum district will be created on the basis of the Aivazovsky National Art Gallery in Feodosia (Theodosia), the Crimea in the next two years, TASS reports, citing Crimean leader Sergey Aksyonov.
The top official said leading experts from the Tretyakov Gallery have arrived in Crimea to assess the museum fund.

“Such a program has never been implemented in the Crimea or in Russia’s south,” he said on Facebook.

The Russian news agency says the museum district will be set up under a federal target program, with some of the funds to be allocated by the Ministry of Culture, while the Aivazovsky Gallery and the house of his sister will remain the property of Theodosia.

The gallery runs in the house designed by Aivazovsky in 1848. Later, the artist built a large exhibition hall adjacent to it. The galley holds the largest collection of the seascape painter’s artworks, featuring over 400 paintings and graphic works.

Hovhannes (Ivan) Aivazovsky Aivazovsky (1817–1900), was a Russian painter of Armenian descent, most famous for his seascapes, which constitute more than half of his paintings. Aivazovsky was born to a poor Armenian family in the city of Theodosia. 

At the age of 20, he graduated from the Art Academy of St. Petersburg with a gold medal. He moved to Italy to continue his studies and returned as an internationally acclaimed seascape painter. Neither financial security nor life in Palace interested him. He returned to his native land, built a studio on the seashore and, until the last days of his life, dedicated himself to the work that he loved.