War in Ukraine: Russia destroyed a computer museum

Located in Mariupol, the 8-bit club had more than 500 relics of video game and computer history. Considered the computer museum of this port city of 430,000 inhabitants, it did not survive the daily bombardments of the Russian army.

The Russian invasion that began a month ago led to the exodus of millions of Ukrainians, caused the death of thousands of people, but also razed certain cities on the map, such as Mariupol, relentlessly pounded by the Russian army in the not to have become a martyr city. At the heart of this port of 400,000 inhabitants, was the club 8-bitone of the largest private computer museums in Ukraine, and it did not survive the bombings.

It was its owner, Dmitry Cherepanov, who shared the information about Facebook. ” The Mariupol Computer Museum no longer exists. All that’s left of the collection I amassed over 15 years are just scraps of memories on the Facebook page, website, and station. radio of the museum. »

A way to tell the story of Russia and Ukraine

According to Gizmodo, who had visited this museum in 2018, there were more than 500 pieces of thecomputer historywith elements dating from the 1950s. Created in 2003, this museum included a large number of ZX Spectrumone of the very first computers personal, very popular in the 80s in the former USSR. For Cherepanov, this collection was also a way of telling the history of Russia and Ukraine through his computers. Children went there to discover the video games of yesteryear, with the ancients joysticks and arcade cabinets.

Pell-mell, he had assembled a Apple IIca Compaq Portable III, a Atari 400, or game consoles. On its website, its author has also recovered and posted 100 GB of archives of programs, games, music and videos from various platforms, accessible to all. “ The Mariupol Computer Museum is no more, but that’s not the end! he writes. The war not only destroyed houses and destroyed not only the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents of Mariupol, it erases the history and heritage of various spheres of life in Mariupol, but for the museum’s website, this is just the beginning “.