Maksym Shtatskyi is known as the initiator of research into the foundation of the destroyed barn on Zachyniaieva Street in Verkhnia Khortytsia, which turned out to be built of tombstones from the former Mennonite cemetery. Employees of the Khortytsia Reserve discovered the valuable historical find in the summer of 2019.

As Maksym Shtatskyi told me at the excavation site in July 2019, the oldest Mennonite cemetery in what is now Zaporizhzhia was located next to the barn. Now it is the site of the 86th school, and before that it was a stadium. The cemetery was destroyed in the 1930s.

- In the summer of 2020, Maksym Shtatskyi, together with Dmytro Kobalia and other colleagues, found the grave of the first Mennonite settler, Jacob Heppner (1748-1826), who was the first Mennonite to see Khortytsia. He was buried on the island. In 1973, the tombstones from the graves of Jacob Heppner and his younger son were taken to Canada, and the burial site was lost in lush bushes and household waste.

The grave was found on the slope of the Hannivka gully near the central cemetery near the Khortytska National Rehabilitation Academy.

"Actually, we had a rough guess. The locals were pointing in the direction where Heppner was probably buried. We armed ourselves with diagrams, photographs, maps, and memories. We got photos from locals, in Canada, from Zaporizhzhia guides, and many other places. This discovery led to an absolutely logical decision to create a Mennonite memorial next to the grave of the first settler," Maksym Statskyi told me.

- In the spring of 2021, in a wasteland in Verkhnia Khortytsia, Maksym Statskyi found the pedestal of the Centenary Memorial, which had been considered lost for many decades. This monument was erected in 1890 by the Mennonites in Khortytsia to commemorate the centenary of their resettlement in our region. The discovery was preceded by 10 years of research.

- In the spring of 2021, one of the missing tombstones of the cemetery where the Mennonites were buried was found in Khortytsia in the Hannivka gully, the tombstone of Pastor Bernard Hildebrandt, the younger brother of the famous manufacturer, engineer, watchmaker, and memoirist Korenelius Yakovlevich Hildebrandt.