For the organization and holding of the theatrical festival “Melpomene of Tavria” in 2026, 700 thousand UAH are planned to be allocated from the regional budget.
This amount is specified in the order on making amendments to the Program for the Development of Culture and Spirituality for 2025–2027, which was signed by the head of the Kherson Regional State Administration (HOVA) Oleksandr Prokudin.
The funds’ manager will be the Department for the Implementation of Humanitarian Policy of the Kherson Regional State Administration and the Kherson Regional Theater named after Mykola Kulish.
The program states that during the festival they plan to show about 25 performances each year at various locations.
Recall, the XXVII International Theater Festival «Melpomene of Tavria» this year is planned to be held from September 12 to 20. It will take place in three formats: in Kherson – performances in shelters and specially adapted locations, in Mykolaiv – small and large format performances for city residents and internally displaced persons, as well as the “Performance at Home” format, when a performance is shown on the city’s own stage, to which a troupe is invited.
The director of the Kulish Theater is Oleksandr Knyha – a deputy of the Kherson Regional Council from Ihor Kolykhaiev’s party “We Live Here!”.
In July 2024 the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine fined the Kherson Regional Theater named after M. Kulish and LLC “Festival Center” 48 thousand UAH, finding collusion between them during public procurements in 2021.
LLC “Festival Center” through proxy persons belongs to Oleksandr Knyha.
The company repeatedly “won” tenders held by the Kherson theater – such events were simply “leaked” to the “Festival Center”. City Day, Easter fair, concerts for officials, “watermelon” festival – funds from the city and regional budgets were spent on these and many other events, and they were exclusively executed by the “Festival Center”.
And in 2021 Knyha’s company received a procurement related to the organization of exhibitions, fairs and congresses and the organization and holding of the regional festival “Masnytsia Holiday”, which cost the region 150 thousand UAH.