After the suicide on July 30 (August 11) 1915 of the first curator of the museum Volodymyr Kurovsky, on August 11, 1915, at a meeting of the OTKM Council, in the presence of M. Braikevich, K. Kostandi, O. Popov, A. Todorov, I. Khoyn the question of choosing the curator of the City Museum of Fine Arts was raised. The meeting began by honoring the memory of Kurovsky, then unanimously elected the curator of the museum K. Kostandi, notified the Odesa City Council, and thanked the artist Dvornikov for substituting as a curator.
The city council did not approve Kyriak Kostandi and appointed Volodymyr Kurochkin, a graphic arts teacher, to this position, which was firmly disagreed with. The conflict lasted for two years until, in March 1917, OTKM Vice President Mykhailo Braikevych was elected mayor, who immediately resolved the issue. On March 23, 1917, 65-year-old artist and educator Kyriak Kostandi accepted a new challenge - taking on the curator duties of the City Museum of Fine Arts.
In addition to creative and pedagogical activities, Kostandi taught art at the Higher School of Art, von Hirsch-Brahm Gymnasium, and photography courses of Mikhail Muchkin, and he got yet another responsibility - managing the museum. He began his work at this position by changing the exposition. Still, apart from that, it also included the reception of new exhibits, the organization of exhibitions, all kinds of correspondence, compiling annual reports on the museum's activities, a vast administrative and economic burden, although in 1918, the staff of the City Museum of Fine Arts consisted of only three people: the curator of the Museum Kyriak Kostandi, the doorman Ivan Nemirovsky and the servant Mikhail Melnitsky.