KYIV — A block away from Kyiv’s Independence Square — once home to protests that ushered in Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, and today the site of thousands of blue-and-yellow flags commemorating the soldiers who’ve died in the war with Russia — an 85-year-old woman makes her way up the steep hill to the humble museum she’s run for nearly 40 years. Maria Zarembska opened Native House on Kostolna Street in 1986 to exhibit her personal embroidery collection, from linen children’s sets to formal dresses. My colleague Liubov Sholudko and I see her small, parka-clad frame ascending the hill. Sholudko, who translates during our visit, hurries to greet Zarembska in Ukrainian. She grips each of our forearms for balance as we walk the remaining stretch of street to the basement-level museum.As we descend the steps to the entrance, past a sign depicting a traditional red-and-white vyshyvka (embroidery) pattern, Sholudko translates Zarembska’s musings on the days when she was one of a dozen artists who called this street home in the 1990s, before it became more financially challenging to survive as an artist. Now, she says, she’s the only Ukrainian folk artist remaining in the neighborhood. A Ukrainian soldier walks past the exterior of Maria Zarembska’s museum, Pідна Xата, or Native House, in Kyiv.Inside Zarembska’s small museum, open daily in the afternoons, white blouses adorned with intricate red and black stitches hang along the walls of the first of three rooms. These are vyshyvanka, embroidered shirts typical of Ukraine’s national garb. The patterns adorning each piece of clothing can vary by region and artist, but often feature folk symbols like diamonds representing fertility and stars signifying protection.As we take in the variety of patterns, Zarembska explains that she learned to embroider before she even learned to cook. Born in the small village of Kopychyntsi in western Ukraine in 1939 to a patriotic family, Zarembska began embroidering at the age of 10. Because she was often ill as a child, her mother suggested she embroider scenes and patterns that appeared in her imagination. “I was sick all the time,” Zarembska recalls, speaking in Ukrainian. “The embroidery helped me to survive.”Although she’d eventually marry four times, Zarembska was never able to have children of her own. Over time, she explains, she grew to think of her embroideries as her children instead. Zarembska with one of the hundreds of items of clothing she has decorated with vyshyvka, traditional Ukrainian embroidery, since she learned the skill at age 10.In 1984, Zarembska’s personal collection appeared in an exhibition in the city of Ternopil, near her hometown. The Soviet government, in power at the time, then sent the collection to exhibitions in Moscow, France, the United States, and Canada — where her father’s pro-Ukrainian family had fled to escape persecution — and sent Zarembska to Yalta, in now-annexed Crimea, to teach Russian.Even though she’d grown up in a proudly Ukrainian family, Zarembska had learned Russian in school. She recalls that her Russian language teacher only spoke Russian in the classroom and would switch to Ukrainian the moment class ended. When she arrived in Crimea, Zarembska resolved to do the same in her classroom. Zarembska holds an excerpt from an article about her in the magazine Ukraine from 1991, the year of the country’s independence.The Soviet state enforced a policy of Russification, forcing the various ethnic groups under the Union’s umbrella to adopt the Russian language and culture. At the same time, it also adopted — and claimed as its own — various cultural elements of those ethnic groups, including Georgian cuisine and Ukrainian embroidery. Since Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has revived those Soviet-era strategies, justifying its attempts to occupy the territory by denying the existence of a distinct Ukrainian culture.“Moscow was built by Ukraine’s king, Yuri Dolgorukiy,” Zarembska tells me emphatically, speaking proudly of her Ukrainian heritage.A few years into her teaching career, she recalls, the Soviet government offered her a higher salary for teaching Russian. When she refused the raise, and the state pushed back, she left the job and headed for Kyiv. There, she says, the Soviet government gifted her the museum space in an attempt “to keep her here.”Still, her museum remains a tribute to Ukrainian identity. Native House showcases hundreds of embroidered objects, including more traditional women’s shirts adorned with black and red embroidery and children’s clothing featuring green, orange, teal, and pink designs. Carefully preserved photo albums and magazines show Zarembska’s embroidery in use at a wedding and gathering of friends. Although the pieces are replete with traditional Ukrainian geometric and floral patterns, Zarembska doesn’t linger on the meaning — she says each design was inspired by her imagination. Alongside her embroideries, a table displays mementos to her homeland, including campaign flyers for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and a portrait of poet Taras Shevchenko.Ukrainian producer Liubov Sholudko speaks with Zambreska in her museum.Even as she notes how difficult it is to survive as an artist, let alone one of the few remaining folk artists of her generation, Zarembska recognizes that Ukrainian culture and embroidery are experiencing a resurgence.Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Ukrainian youth have committed themselves to rediscovering and celebrating their heritage. At Easter gatherings and folk concerts, young adults don the traditional vyshyvanka-style clothes that Zarembska has embroidered for decades. Fashion brands such as Etnodim now sell chic linen dresses and vests embroidered with modernized vyshyvka designs, and each May, Ukrainians select their favorite styles to wear on the annual Vyshyvanka Day.“We won’t be destroyed by anyone,” Zarembska says. “My people are present now and my people will be present forever.”Editor’s Note: This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Women on the Ground: Reporting from Ukraine’s Unseen Frontlines Initiative in partnership with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.