The Tragedy of War. How Conflict Destroyed Ukraine’s Premier Retro Computing Museum

Technology

In the ongoing catalog of cultural casualties from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the destruction of the it8bit Club represents an irreplaceable loss to computing heritage and collective memory.

How Conflict Destroyed Ukraine's Premier Retro Computing Museum

The Russian attack on Mariupol resulted in the destruction of almost all buildings in the city, including museums and every other place dedicated to preserving memory. Among these buildings, there is also the famous it8bit Club, the largest Ukrainian private museum dedicated to the history of computers, which was completely destroyed following the bombing of the city.

Table of Contents

Introduction

On March 21, 2022, amid the devastating siege of Mariupol, Ukraine, a unique repository of computing history was reduced to rubble. The it8bit Club—Ukraine’s largest private museum dedicated to retro computing and video game history—fell victim to the indiscriminate bombardment that has characterized much of the Russian military campaign in urban areas.

“That’s it, the Mariupol computer museum is no longer there,” announced the museum’s founder and curator, Dmitry Cherepanov, in a heart-wrenching Facebook post that quickly circulated among technology enthusiasts and preservationists worldwide. “All that is left from my collection that I have been collecting for 15 years is just fragments of memories on the [Facebook] page, website, and radio station of the museum.”

In an instant, over 500 pieces of meticulously restored computing artifacts—some dating back to the 1950s—were obliterated, representing not just monetary value but an irreplaceable archive of technological evolution. The destruction of the it8bit Club serves as a sobering reminder that war damages not only present infrastructure but also our collective links to the past. 💔

This article examines what was lost when bombs fell on the it8bit Club, explores the significance of preserving computing history, and investigates how digital archivists are working to ensure such cultural heritage can survive even when physical artifacts cannot.

The it8bit Club: A Digital Time Capsule

The it8bit Club: A Digital Time Capsule

Founded by passionate collector and technologist Dmitry Cherepanov, the it8bit Club evolved from a personal hobby into one of Eastern Europe’s most significant repositories of computing history. Located in Mariupol, a port city in southeastern Ukraine, the museum occupied an unassuming building that belied the technological treasures housed within.

Unlike many technology museums that focus solely on American or Western European contributions to computing, the it8bit Club was especially valuable for its comprehensive collection of Soviet-era computers and gaming systems—many of which are exceptionally rare today due to limited production runs and the challenging economic conditions under which they were created.

What Made the Museum Special

The it8bit Club distinguished itself through several unique characteristics:

  • Functioning Exhibits: Unlike museums that merely display vintage technology behind glass, most systems at it8bit were restored to working condition, allowing visitors to experience them as originally intended.
  • Comprehensive Documentation: Each piece came with extensive technical specifications, historical context, and often personal stories about acquisition and restoration.
  • Software Preservation: Beyond hardware, the museum maintained an extensive digital archive of original software, games, and programming tools—many salvaged from deteriorating storage media.
  • Interactive Experience: Visitors could not only view but actually use many of the vintage computers and gaming systems, creating an immersive educational experience.

The museum quickly became a pilgrimage site for computing enthusiasts from across Europe and beyond. As noted by technology publication Gizmodo, which visited in 2018, it represented “one of the largest and coolest collections” of Soviet-era computers anywhere in the world. 🖥️

What Was Lost: The Collection

The magnitude of cultural loss becomes apparent when examining the breadth of the it8bit collection, painstakingly assembled over 15 years. While exact inventory records were also lost in the destruction, previous documentation and visitor accounts confirm the museum housed approximately:

  • Over 120 different computer models, with many represented by multiple units to show different configurations
  • More than 500 individual computing artifacts
  • Thousands of software titles preserved on original media
  • Extensive technical documentation, including rare user manuals, schematics, and programming guides
  • Custom preservation equipment designed by Cherepanov himself

Notable Items in the Collection

The museum housed several exceptionally rare and historically significant pieces:

  1. Early Soviet Mainframes and Minicomputers – Including examples from the BESM series (Big Electronic Computing Machine), which represented the Soviet Union’s first indigenous computing designs.
  2. Complete Series of Soviet Microcomputers – The museum featured nearly every model of the popular BK, Electronika, and Korvet series that formed the backbone of Soviet home and educational computing.
  3. Gaming History – From early electronic games to Soviet Nintendo clones like the Dendy, the museum traced the parallel evolution of gaming in the Eastern Bloc.
  4. Military Computer Technology – Several declassified military computing systems showed how Cold War tensions drove technological development.
  5. International Collection – Beyond Soviet systems, the museum included Western computers ranging from early Apple models to Commodore systems and obscure European microcomputers.

Tech journalist Vladimir Przhiluskiy, who documented the collection in 2019, noted: “What makes Cherepanov’s collection truly unique is not just the hardware itself, but the context he provides—each machine represents not just technological evolution but social history and the lived experience of computing in the Eastern Bloc.”

The Importance of Digital Heritage Preservation

The destruction of the it8bit Club raises profound questions about digital heritage preservation. Unlike traditional cultural artifacts that might survive centuries or millennia, early computing technology is inherently fragile—subject to degradation from environmental factors, component failure, and technological obsolescence.

Why Preserving Computing History Matters

Computing history preservation serves multiple crucial functions:

  • Technical Education – Understanding the evolution of technology provides invaluable context for current and future innovation.
  • Cultural Documentation – Computers reflect the societies that created them, from economic priorities to aesthetic values.
  • Inspiration for Innovation – Historical computing approaches often contain solutions relevant to contemporary challenges.
  • Conservation of Problem-Solving Methods – Early computers required ingenious workarounds for hardware limitations that remain instructive today.

Dr. Doron Swade, computing historian and former curator at London’s Science Museum, explains: “We preserve computing history not out of nostalgia, but because it contains the intellectual heritage of how we solved problems under constraints. This knowledge remains relevant even as technology advances.”

The loss of the it8bit Club represents more than just destroyed hardware—it’s the loss of carefully documented contexts, restoration knowledge, and the curatorial vision that made these artifacts meaningful. While photographs and some digital documentation survive online, the tactile experience of interacting with these historical machines is irreplaceable. 📱

War’s Impact on Cultural Heritage

The destruction of the it8bit Club represents just one instance in a much broader pattern of cultural heritage casualties during armed conflict. Throughout history, war has proven catastrophic for museums, libraries, and other repositories of cultural memory.

Historical Precedents

  • The burning of the Library of Alexandria (approximately 48 BCE)
  • The destruction of Baghdad’s House of Wisdom during the Mongol invasion (1258)
  • The systematic looting of European art during World War II
  • The Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan (2001)
  • ISIS’s deliberate destruction of artifacts at Mosul Museum, Iraq (2015)

The targeting—intentional or incidental—of cultural sites during conflict represents what UNESCO characterizes as “cultural cleansing,” an attempt to erase collective memory and identity. While the destruction of the it8bit Club was likely collateral damage rather than a targeted attack, the effect remains the same: a severed connection to history.

Legal Protections for Cultural Heritage

International humanitarian law, particularly the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict and its additional protocols, establishes legal frameworks designed to protect cultural heritage during wartime. However, enforcement remains challenging, especially in conflicts where civilian infrastructure is systematically targeted.

Dr. Emma Cunliffe of the UK’s Blue Shield organization, which works to protect cultural heritage during conflict, notes: “While legal frameworks exist, physical protection of cultural sites during active conflict is extraordinarily difficult. This is why documentation and digital preservation have become increasingly crucial contingency strategies.”

Dmitry Cherepanov: The Guardian of Computing History

Behind every museum stands a passionate curator, and the it8bit Club was the vision of one dedicated individual: Dmitry Cherepanov. For over 15 years, Cherepanov devoted his expertise, resources, and countless hours to building a collection that preserved not just hardware but living digital history.

The Collector’s Journey

Cherepanov’s passion for vintage computing began in the 1990s during the turbulent post-Soviet period. As outdated government and educational computers were being scrapped en masse, he recognized the historical value being lost and began rescuing systems destined for disposal.

What started as a personal collection gradually expanded into a comprehensive preservation project. Cherepanov taught himself advanced electronics repair, developed specialized restoration techniques for Soviet-era components, and built a network of fellow enthusiasts who helped locate rare systems.

“Each machine has its own story,” Cherepanov explained in a 2017 interview with technology website Ars Technica. “I’m not just collecting hardware—I’m preserving the human creativity and ingenuity these systems represent.”

Beyond Collection: Education and Community

The it8bit Club transcended being merely a repository of old technology. Cherepanov regularly hosted educational workshops for local schools, teaching programming on vintage systems to illustrate fundamental computing concepts. The museum also served as a community hub for technology enthusiasts across Ukraine and neighboring countries.

Through his dedicated work, Cherepanov embodied what preservation experts call “intangible cultural heritage”—the knowledge, skills, and contextual understanding that give physical artifacts their full meaning and value. 🧠

Digital Preservation Efforts

While the physical collection at it8bit Club has been destroyed, digital preservation efforts offer some consolation and reflect the growing importance of virtual archives in cultural heritage protection.

The Internet Archive: A Digital Safety Net

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has preserved snapshots of the it8bit Club’s official website, capturing descriptions, photographs, and technical details of many items in the collection. While not comprehensive, these digital remnants provide valuable documentation of what was lost.

The museum’s Facebook page similarly serves as an inadvertent archive, with years of posts documenting new acquisitions, restoration processes, and visitor experiences. Together, these digital footprints ensure that knowledge of the collection survives even as the physical artifacts are gone.

Community Documentation Efforts

Following news of the museum’s destruction, computing history enthusiasts worldwide began collating available information about the it8bit collection:

  • The Vintage Computer Federation initiated a project to gather and organize all available documentation
  • Several technology forums established threads dedicated to collecting visitor photographs and videos
  • Computing historians began formal documentation of the collection based on available sources

Jason Scott of the Internet Archive’s software collection explains: “Digital communities often rally around preservation crises. While we can’t replace physical artifacts, collaborative documentation can preserve substantial knowledge about them.”

Software Preservation

An often-overlooked aspect of computing history is software preservation. While hardware can be displayed as static artifacts, software requires functioning systems to be experienced as intended. The it8bit Club excelled in this area, maintaining not just hardware but operational software libraries.

Some portions of this digital collection may survive through previous sharing with other preservation projects. The Software Preservation Society and various vintage computing communities had previously collaborated with Cherepanov to digitize rare Soviet software titles, creating redundant archives that outlive the original collection. 💾

The Shared Computing History of Ukraine and Russia

One particularly poignant aspect of the it8bit Club’s destruction lies in what the collection represented: a shared technological heritage between Ukraine and Russia, now at war. The museum documented a period when both nations were part of the Soviet Union, collaborating on technological development despite political tensions.

Soviet Computing Development

Soviet computing evolved through distinctive phases:

  1. Early Innovation Period (1950s) – Development of indigenous computing designs like the MESM and BESM series mainframes
  2. Clone Era (1960s-70s) – Creation of systems compatible with Western architectures, particularly IBM mainframes
  3. Microcomputer Revolution (1980s) – Development of distinctive home and educational computers with unique characteristics
  4. Post-Soviet Transition (1990s) – Rapid adoption of Western technology as domestic production collapsed

What made this history complex was its distributed nature—computer research and production occurred across multiple Soviet republics, with significant contributions from both Russian and Ukrainian engineers and scientists.

Ukrainian Contributions to Computing

Ukraine played a crucial role in Soviet computing innovation:

  • The Institute of Cybernetics in Kyiv developed pioneering systems including the MIR series of computers
  • Severodonetsk’s Computer Plant produced critical systems for industrial control throughout the USSR
  • Ukrainian programmer Kateryna Yushchenko developed one of the world’s first high-level programming languages

The it8bit Museum documented this intertwined legacy, showing how innovation flowed across what are now international borders. As technology writer Andrey Veselovsky noted after visiting in 2019: “What struck me most was how the collection transcended current geopolitics, showing a shared intellectual heritage that belongs to all post-Soviet states.”

Soviet Computing: An Overlooked Legacy

Western narratives of computing history often overlook Soviet contributions, focusing primarily on American and Western European developments. This imbalance made the it8bit Club particularly valuable as one of few institutions comprehensively documenting the “other side” of the computing revolution.

Distinctive Characteristics of Soviet Computing

Soviet computer development followed different priorities and constraints than Western technology:

  • Resource Constraints – Limited access to advanced components led to innovative workarounds
  • Standardization Focus – Emphasis on compatibility across vast geographic regions
  • Education Priority – Many systems were designed specifically for educational contexts
  • Industrial Application – Focus on systems controlling manufacturing rather than business processing
  • Unique Aesthetic – Distinctive industrial design reflecting Soviet modernist principles

These characteristics produced computers that weren’t simply behind their Western counterparts (as often stereotyped) but often reflected different design philosophies and priorities.

Notable Soviet Computer Systems

Among the lost collection were examples of groundbreaking Soviet systems:

  • MESM (Small Electronic Calculating Machine) – The first computer built in the Soviet Union (1951)
  • Setun – One of the world’s only ternary computers (using base-3 rather than binary logic)
  • MIR Series – Pioneering personal workstations that predated Western equivalents
  • Elektronika BK-0010 – Home computer that introduced many Soviet citizens to computing
  • Agat – Soviet Apple II compatible machine adapted for Cyrillic character support

Computing historian Alexander Nitussov observes: “Soviet computing represents an alternative evolutionary path—what technology might have become under different economic and political conditions. The loss of physical examples makes this history increasingly abstract.” 🔄

Rebuilding From the Digital Ashes

Despite the devastating physical loss, Cherepanov has indicated that the it8bit project will continue in some form. In the aftermath of the destruction, he established a PayPal account to receive donations—initially to support basic survival needs during the war, but with longer-term goals of eventually reestablishing a preservation effort.

Challenges to Rebuilding

Recreating such a collection faces significant obstacles:

  • Increasing Rarity – Many systems in the original collection were already among the last known examples
  • Documentation Loss – Custom restoration techniques and specific system configurations may be lost
  • Economic Challenges – Post-war reconstruction priorities may limit resources for cultural projects
  • Psychological Impact – The trauma of loss and displacement affects preservation motivation

Despite these challenges, digital preservation communities have rallied around the concept of supporting a future resurrection of the museum in some form. Several international technology museums have offered partnership opportunities, and collectors worldwide have volunteered to donate items from their personal collections.

Digital-First Preservation Strategy

Future preservation efforts will likely adopt a “digital-first” approach, prioritizing comprehensive documentation even when physical artifacts cannot be obtained. This strategy includes:

  • 3D scanning of existing artifacts in other collections
  • Comprehensive photography and video documentation
  • FPGA-based hardware emulation to recreate the functionality of rare systems
  • Oral history collection from engineers, programmers, and users

Dr. Jason Fitzpatrick, curator at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, UK, suggests: “The future of computing preservation may increasingly focus on experience rather than artifacts—recreating not just the hardware but how it felt to use these systems in their original context.”

How to Support Digital Preservation

The destruction of the it8bit Club raises awareness about the vulnerability of computing history. Individuals interested in supporting preservation efforts have several options:

Direct Support Options

  • Donate to it8bit Rebuilding – Cherepanov’s PayPal remains active for those wishing to support his efforts directly
  • Support Major Preservation Organizations – Institutions like the Computer History Museum, The Internet Archive, and the Digital Preservation Coalition accept donations
  • Contribute to Documentation – Many preservation projects seek volunteers to help document systems and software

Personal Preservation Actions

Individual technology enthusiasts can contribute through:

  • Documenting Personal Collections – Comprehensive photography and description of vintage systems
  • Contributing to Emulation Projects – Open-source emulation efforts preserve software functionality
  • Oral History Recording – Capturing experiences from early computing pioneers before they’re lost
  • Responsible Collecting – Ensuring vintage technology is properly stored and documented

As Dr. Henry Lowood of Stanford University’s Software Preservation Lab notes: “Preservation is increasingly a distributed, community effort rather than the domain of individual institutions. Everyone with knowledge or artifacts can contribute meaningfully.” 🤝

Conclusion

The destruction of the it8bit Club represents a profound loss to global computing heritage—a loss made more poignant by its occurrence during a conflict between nations whose shared technological history the museum documented. As bombs fell on Mariupol, they not only destroyed present infrastructure but obliterated irreplaceable connections to a shared past.

Yet, from this destruction emerges an important lesson about resilience and the changing nature of preservation. While physical artifacts may be vulnerable to disaster, war, and time itself, knowledge can persist through digital documentation, community memory, and the dedication of preservationists like Dmitry Cherepanov.

The tragedy of the it8bit Club reminds us that cultural heritage—including technological heritage—requires protection both physical and digital. It underscores that computing history, though recent compared to many cultural traditions, represents a crucial chapter in human innovation that deserves rigorous preservation.

As we move forward in an increasingly digital world, perhaps the most fitting memorial to what was lost in Mariupol is a renewed commitment to preserving our technological heritage—not just the sleek success stories celebrated in corporate museums, but the messy, diverse, global story of how computing evolved across different political systems, economic constraints, and cultural contexts.

The physical museum may be gone, but its mission continues: ensuring that future generations understand the rich tapestry of innovation that brought us to our digital present. In that sense, while buildings can be destroyed, preservation itself remains indestructible as long as the knowledge is shared and valued.

Links and Sources

If you’d like to support computing history preservation efforts, consider donating to organizations like the Computer History Museum, The Internet Archive, or remaining in contact with Dmitry Cherepanov’s rebuilding efforts through the it8bit Club Facebook page.