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Cultural heritage: what damage are monuments suffering from the arbitrariness of the Russians

We are talking about thousands of objects.

More than half a thousand objects of cultural heritage of Ukraine were damaged or destroyed as a result of Russian aggression. The Russians have already conducted hundreds of archaeological excavations in the temporarily occupied territories and plan to do so in the future. Thus, Ukrainians are deprived of those layers of culture and history that have not been thoroughly studied and henceforth lost forever.

The Russians looted museum funds in the occupied territory, and also extract valuables from the land along the Tauride highway and in Chersonese Tavriyskyi, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

During the discussion at the Ukraine Media Center, archaeologist Evelina Kravchenko of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine noted that it is necessary to involve international law in order to influence the movement of objects of cultural heritage by the occupiers.

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In particular, we are talking about such categories of movable cultural heritage as: things obtained in the process of excavations, moved from looted Ukrainian museums to Crimea or obtained as a result of excavations or metal detector searches. Presumably, all of them are sold at illegal auctions.

At the same time, Kravchenko noted that thousands of objects are being discussed in the issue of excavations illegally conducted by Russia, in particular in the temporarily occupied Crimea.

“These are hundreds of thousands of objects – we are talking about Chersonesus. About the whole of Crimea – it is about millions. This is a colossal amount of things obtained only from archaeological excavations conducted by organizations. We do not have statistics on things taken to Crimea, robbed in Kherson region and Zaporizhzhia. These are also numbers in the tens, or maybe even hundreds of thousands. I think that not all of them were moved to museums in the Crimea, but some were simply robbed or otherwise disappeared in that direction. And we still don’t have statistics of “black” archaeologists,” the archaeologist said.

Military builders of the Russian army are building a new amphitheater in the Crimea on the territory of the Taurid Chersonese

Andriy Lutsyk, an expert on cultural heritage protection at the Regional Center for Human Rights, emphasized that the construction campaign being conducted by Russia in Crimea is taking place without thorough research into which cultural layers may be destroyed during the works. A vivid example, according to him, is the Taurid track.

“The construction itself took place at an astronomically fast pace. And archaeologists from almost all over Russia were involved in archaeological work. Because it was necessary to excavate square kilometers of the cultural layer in one archaeological season. Archaeologists who had never worked with Crimean monuments were involved. With the speed of construction work, it is impossible to carry out a proper phased reconnaissance,” he explained.

 

UNESCO noticed that the World Heritage sites in Kyiv and Lviv are under threat

Lutsik emphasized that Ukrainian scientists cannot have the materials of such archaeological research. Because any scientist who studies this region is forced to rely on the work of the Russians, because it is impossible to draw conclusions due to the lack of excavation artifacts.

“The only information they receive is conditional “second hand”, it is what Russian scientists wrote about these sights. With these works, they are depriving Ukraine of its right to historical memory and culture,” the expert concluded.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a resolution on the appeal to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the parliaments and governments of its member states on the need to deprive Russia of its membership in UNESCO.