Ruins of the ancient city of Chersonese Taurica in Crimea, with one of the museum’s new buildings in the background
Photo: Viktor Karasev/Alamy Stock Photo
Ukraine has called on the United Nations (UN) to shield Tauric Chersonese in Crimea, a UNESCO World Heritage site, after Russia finished paintings to the site into a “historical and archaeological park”.
The site, an ancient city founded by Greek settlers in the fifth century B. C. It was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2013, less than a year before Russia illegally annexed the Black Sea peninsula to Ukraine. The new complex, located in what was once a suburb of the Old Town, houses a Russian Orthodox monastery and several museums, including the Museum of Christianity and the Museum of Crimea and Novorossiya, a term Russia uses to refer to territories it has illegally annexed from Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has visited Tauric Cheronese in the afterlife and has spoken of this region and Crimea in general as a central part of the Russian state, contributing to the feeling that the resolution to reinvent it is an elaborate propaganda exercise.
The new complex, built through the Russian Ministry of Defense and financed through Transneft, a state-owned company, was officially opened on July 28 and named “New Chersonesos. ” Putin tasked Metropolitan Tikhon Shevkunov, a high-ranking cleric who promoted Chersonesos as heir to Byzantium, to oversee the assignment and the new monastery.
Ukrainian experts say Chersonesos is not recognizable as the archaeological monument they once studied. On July 24, Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s parliamentary human rights commissioner, called for UN intervention, stating that the damage to the Tauric Chersonesos is a component of Russia’s policy to erase Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
In a message posted on his Telegram channel, Lubinets said that “the Russians have completely destroyed the original monument,” adding that “they are building a new city, the so-called ancient and archaeological park. “Lubinets states that “many archaeological finds were also “stolen through the Russian Federation and transported to Russian museums. “
In a recently published report, Evelina Kravchenko of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine highlighted the damage suffered by the site, while referring to the removal and possible loss of objects.
“The structural paintings destroyed the cultural layer, which in some cases reached more than 10 meters, the remains of an ancient temple, the city necropolis with funerary and memorial structures, layers of ashes and garbage, the remains of suburban complexes of WHS. together,” Kravchenko wrote.
“In addition to the general appearance of the site being altered, resulting in a distortion of the ancient landscape, tens of thousands of excavations excavated through earthworks in destroyed suburban complexes were removed in Crimea, and tens of thousands more were found. in fashionable landfills in Sevastopol [a major city in Crimea], where they were transported via sales trucks from the structure area,” he said, adding: “Some of them were recovered from those sales through the local population for no -Public garage and private garage. Sale on the black market Therefore, we will soon be able to see things from Chersonesos on online auctions.
Yevheniya Kravchuk, Ukrainian parliamentarian and chairwoman of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), spoke to Art Newspaper about Russia’s motivations. “Crimea is very vital for them , either because “It is home to the oldest sites, the oldest cities on Ukrainian territory,” he said. convey the concept that they build bigger than the ancient Greeks. “
Kravchuk is the origin of a solution followed in June by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe accusing Russia of “erasing cultural identity” in Ukraine.
The assignment of New Chersonesos follows other works in Tauric Chersonesos, adding the renovation of St. Vladimir’s Cathedral, believed to be on the site where Prince Volodymyr of kyiv baptized the Orthodox in 988, and the structure of an open-air theater on the remains of a Roman citadel.
At the 46th World Heritage Committee consultation in New Delhi, India, last month, Anastasiya Bondar, head of the Ukrainian delegation and Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy, initiated negotiations on the inclusion of Tauric Chersonese in UNESCO World Heritage. List in Danger, the ministry reported on August 1. At the time of writing, there is no news on the plan to inscribe the site on UNESCO’s “endangered” list, and the site has not been discussed in the summaries of UNESCO’s decisions made in the consultation. Art newspaper has contacted the organization for comment.
On August 1, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: “If they wish, UNESCO representatives will come to Crimea, to the Tauric Chersonese, and appreciate what it has become. “