In the city of Sevastopol, construction work is under way in a part of the Chersonesus cemetery on the so-called Virgin Hill, Poland’s dziennik.pl website reported, citing Ukraine’s Ukrinform news agency.
The resting place of some of the first Christian martyrs has been turned into a building site, dziennik.pl reported. It added that heavy construction equipment has already damaged several archaeological sites, reducing them to a heap of rocks.
An eyewitness, heritage conservationist Anatoly Tumanov, said: “On June 23, I saw an excavator destroy historical heritage,” as cited by dziennik.pl.
The excavator had cut one of the well-maintained Chersonesus tombs in two, dziennik.pl reported.
“The contractor has no right whatsoever to start building work without first carrying out archaeological research,” Tumanov said.
World Heritage site
Chersonesus was an ancient Greek colony, dziennik.pl said, adding that in 988, Vladimir the Great was baptised there, which represented a symbolic baptism of Kievan Rus.
The colony’s remains are in today’s Sevastopol. In 2013, UNESCO listed Chersonesus as a World Heritage site, dziennik.pl reported.
The devastation of the Chersonesus tombs is not the first time the Russian occupation authorities have destroyed historical sites in the Crimean Peninsula, according to dziennik.pl.
The website cited lawyer Daryna Pidhorna as saying that “hundreds of thousands of artefacts have been irrevocably destroyed during the construction of the Taurida route.”
Meanwhile, according to UNESCO, Russia has destroyed over 150 cultural sites since invading Ukraine in February, including more than 70 shrines, dziennik.pl reported.
Tuesday is day 125 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: dziennik.pl, biznes.interia.pl