Putin promises protection of ancient Crimea town

Historians fear Sevastopol authorities will damage Unesco world heritage site Chersonesus, an ancient Greek city, to attract orthodox believers.

An obscure row between supporters of the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian archaeologists reached the Kremlin on Saturday when President Vladimir Putin declared Unesco-listed ruins in Crimea a national heritage site.

The governor of Sevastopol last week appointed a priest as the director of a historical area that contains Chersonesus, an ancient Greek city on the Crimean coast.

Founded in the sixth century BC on a peninsula to the west of modern Sevastopol, the ancient city has been excavated by archaeologists for nearly 200 years and was made a Unesco world heritage site in 2013.

It holds significance for Orthodox believers as the site of the baptism in 988 of Vladimir the Great, the prince credited with converting Kievan Rus, the precursor of modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, to Christianity.

Sergei Menyailo, the governor of Sevastopol, appointed Father Sergei Khalyuta, the archpriest of the city’s diocese, to run the site, saying it should be “a place of pilgrimage, not just tourism.”

The move drew immediate criticism from park employees, who suspect Father Khalyuta’s appointment heralds plans to destroy swathes of ancient remains in order to accommodate ambitions to make it a “second Mt Athos,” the mountaintop monastery in Greece that is a popular place of pilgrimage for orthodox believers.

Some of Russia’s most prominent historians and museum curators have waded into the row, with Mikhail Piotrovsky, the respected director of the Hermitage in St Petersburg, calling Mr Khalyuta’s appointment “a provocation fraught with serious social tension.”

Alexei Chaliy, the Crimean businessman and city council member who last year signed the treaty that formally annexed Sevastopol to Russia, called the move “unfortunate” and said it should be reversed.

“Chersonesus is much more than just the church where Vladimir was baptised,” said Mr Chaliy, who previously clashed with Sevastopol authorities over plans to lease 267 hectares of environmentally and archaeologically sensitive land to the pro-Kremlin Night Wolves motorcycle club.
Mr Putin intervened on Saturday with a decree making the ruins one of “the most valuable cultural heritage sites of the peoples of the Russian federation” and placing the reserve under federal protection.

It is not clear what impact the Kremlin’s move will have on the dispute, but it may be designed to reassure critics that the archaeological site will be protected from development.

Vladimir the Great died a millennium ago this year, and has become a politically sensitive figure amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the 1,000th anniversary of Vladimir’s death last month, Mr Putin praised the medieval leader for unifying ancient Rus and “paving the way for the construction of a strong, centralised Russian state.”
Earlier this year Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, signed a decree recognising Vladimir as the founder of the “medieval European state of Rus-Ukraine.”

Both countries trace their origins to Kievan Rus, the confederation of east Slavic tribes Vladimir ruled over.
Plans to build a giant bronze statue of Vladimir in Moscow have been widely seen as part of a game of historical one-upmanship with Kiev.
The project ran into trouble in June after Muscovites voiced fears that the 330-ton, 79ft monument would cause a landslide at its proposed location on the banks of the Moscow river.

Mr Putin is expected to join an archaeological expedition examining sites associated with the ancient silk road in Crimea later this month. It will be his third visit to the peninsular since Russian troops annexed it from Ukraine in March 2014.