A project to revitalize Yurko Pokalchuk’s house presented in Lutsk

The Frontera literary festival and Algorytm NGO presented the Pako House project, a concept for the Pokalchuk family home restoration, at the festival on August 1, 2025.

According to the organizers’ idea, the creative space will include an international residence for writers, translators, musicians, and cultural managers, a workshop, a tour area, and an event venue garden.

Ella Yatsuta, the founder of the Frontera festival, said the idea emerged in 2020 while she was recording an interview with Oleh Pokalchuk, a writer, military psychologist, and younger brother of Ukrainian author, translator and scientist Yurko Pokalchuk.

“This family are exactly the people who transformed the space around them, gave momentum, created new communities, and encouraged new artists to be published and heard,” Yatsuta said.

The house was built in 1954 and is currently in very bad condition.

“A house with a history like this cannot be allowed to remain silent,” the organizers said.

The design was developed by Bureau++. View the project by clicking the link.

The aim of the project is to explore the intellectual legacy and history of the Pokalchuk family and to recontextualize and revive the figure of Yurko Pokalchuk.

Mykola Zhulynsky, Les Taniuk, the Rylskys, the Mykytenkos, and other colleagues from the literary sphere visited this house.

“The architecture and the history of the house carry much more than just location. The house created this space because it contains the story of the grandfather, the story of resettlement, the story of those past repressions, and the story of changing ideas within it as the children grew up. The house took on a life of its own, and everything that happened with this project is, on the one hand, a completely mystical phenomenon, and on the other hand, natural. I don’t see a contradiction with what my parents or Yurko would have wanted,” Oleh Pokalchuk said.

The Frontera literary festival and Algorytm NGO are currently looking for ambassadors and volunteers for the project.

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Images: Mykola Tsymbaliuk

Copy editing: Joy Tataryn