In the spring of 2024, Anton Boyko, a self-taught jeweler from Kyiv, was recovering from a spinal surgery and preparing to join the Azov regiment, a fighting unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, when he focused his attention on creating a small but meaningful object intended to symbolize the heritage of Ukraine’s lost Trypillian culture: a titanium ring featuring a hidden diamond mechanism.
Boyko worked on the ring, which he named “The Hidden Treasure,” for two full months. While his spinal complication meant he was eventually denied by the Azov regiment, the ring project served as an act of spiritual resistance.
“For me, the most important thing is that this work gives people light emotions and inspires them toward something bright, toward creativity, toward creating beauty, not war or aggression,” Boyko, now serving the Ukraine Armed Forces in the 66th Mechanized Brigade, tells JCK.
While Boyko originally intended to fashion the ring from titanium and platinum, “my platinum supplier was fighting at the time, and I couldn’t find a replacement,” he says. “I also considered using white palladium gold, but it didn’t have the shade I needed. So I chose pure silver.”
The materials were not used by the Trypillian civilization that existed some 6,000 years ago in what is now Ukraine, but Boyko chose them “to emphasize the connection between that era and ours,” he says. “From that time, I took the forms and symbols; from our time the modern materials and technologies. Titanium is an incredibly strong metal, and a very Ukrainian one. We have vast reserves of it. As far as I know, the titanium I work with was mined in Ukraine.”
Featuring a hidden plate of diamonds that appears and disappears at the center of the ring when holding the shank and turning the “jar,” the oversize vessel ring is meant to symbolize the idea “that the cultural heritage of that seemingly lost era not only lives on but continues to influence us and everything we create,” Boyko says. “It forms part of the foundation on which our modern Ukrainian culture stands—a culture full of vivid and valuable phenomena.
“Our present achievements are descendants of that ancient cultural treasure,” he adds. “We may not know much about that civilization, yet it still shapes us. This is what the hidden plate with diamonds symbolizes. We can’t see it at first, but it’s there. To see it, you must take deliberate action, make an effort. The same applies to culture: To uncover its hidden treasures, you have to work for it.”
The ring belongs to a collection of one-of-a-kind pieces commissioned by the Strong & Precious Art Foundation founded in 2022 by Olga Oleksenko to celebrate Ukrainian heritage and promote emerging designers whose work exemplifies the very best of Ukrainian jewelry and design.
The collection will be displayed during New York City Jewelry Week (Nov. 19–23) at the Ukrainian Institute of America in an exhibition entitled “Strong & Precious: Contemporary Ukrainian Jewelry,” featuring 10 designers who are preserving and reimagining Ukrainian identity through craft in a time of war.
While the Hidden Treasure ring is not for sale, the foundation is offering made-to-order limited editions in collaboration with Ukrainian jewelers. In addition, four pieces by Anton Boyko will be available for purchase.
The foundation’s efforts align with Boyko’s hopeful vision for the future.
“I also want Ukrainian jewelers to start creating their own unique designs instead of copying others,” he says. “We have so many talented people. I want them to create, to develop modern Ukrainian art, and to pave our shared national path in jewelry. I dream of seeing a true Ukrainian jewelry school distinct, original, our own. We have so much to show and give to the world. It’s long past time we realized that.”
Top: The Hidden Treasure ring in titanium and silver with diamonds, by Anton Boyko
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