On the coast of the Azov Sea in Eastern Ukraine lies a city of Mariupol. Historically mariupol has been a center of important social, political and economic events due to its geopolitical location, as well as trade and industrial activities. Migratory routes of goods, people, ideas, plants, languages and other elements have formed the city into what it is today. Populated by roughly half a million inhabitants today it is famous for the steel production. 

Located in the borderland of Ukraine, Mariupol has transformed rapidly during the past five years. In 2014 it became the new administrative, and cultural centre in the region after seizure of Donetsk by separatist forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic. It is separated from the occupied Donetsk Republic only by few dozen kilometres.
If the fall of Soviet Union saw decline not only in the population numbers, but also in economic quantifiers and cultural infrastructure, the recent movement of the population from the war affected territories, global aid, volunteers, goods, artifacts and currency has contributed not only to an increase of the population numbers in Mariupol, but also to the development of its cultural capital.
New cultural spaces that have opened within the past five years – Vezha and TЮ, among others - are shifting the notion of Mariupol as peripheral Eastern Ukrainian city.
Following the emerging trends of cultural and urban renaissance in small to medium Ukrainian cities, Mariupol is pursuing open, diverse, and contemporary cultural spaces in its environment, furthermore places that would engage the citizens in the knowledge production, and creation of their own (hi)story.
Not coincidentally in 2018 municipality of Mariupol started to plan for a new cultural space in Mariupol, a multifunctional center dedicated to the urban culture and the identity of the city and Pre Azovskyi region. The new center - the Port of Culture - will be devoted to the subject of migration, a process that has shaped the city throughout the centuries,  becoming an integral part of its identity. Since the foundation of the city, cultural exchange through trade routes contributed to the development of multi-layered, multicultural and diverse city culture. With that in mind Port of Culture will be launched as a place for cultural dialogue. It will uncover and explore the less known traits of Mariupol city, and contextualize its local history within larger regional and global processes related to migration.