A retrograde archaeologist who opposed innovations in Chersonesos lost his trial

In Sevastopol, the My History Foundation, which oversees the restoration and construction of new objects in the Tauride Chersonese Museum-Reserve, won a lawsuit against a former employee for 60 thousand rubles. Restorer Anatoly Tumanov is trying to stop the transformation of the territory of the ancient city into, as he believes, an entertainment center, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

Tumanov's dissatisfaction was caused by numerous innovations in Chersonesos that appeared after the return of Crimea to Russia - a stage for opera concerts, observation decks, the construction of other temporary structures, which, in the opinion of the restorer, harm the cultural heritage site, etc.

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But Tumanov could not prove the threat to the ancient city, and the court rejected the claims. A year later, the foundation demanded that Tumanov compensate the costs of a lawyer, whose services the charity had to resort to in defending its case. Moreover, the amount of expenses amounted to 200 thousand rubles, since the case acquired a public outcry, which somehow influenced the course of procedural actions.

The Gagarinsky District Court of Sevastopol partially satisfied the application for recovery of funds. Although Tumanov’s defense tried to prove the illegality of involving third-party lawyers in the case.

The restorer himself assures that litigation will not stop him. Five years ago, he refused to work at the museum-reserve, announcing his intention to fight for his vision of the development of Chersonese.

“When this very foundation “My History” appeared in Khersones, and what it began to do there, I began to fight against it, and I quit specifically to talk about it directly,” Tumanov told the NTS television channel. “Everyone who cares about Khersones, who knows what’s going on there and that it’s not normal, promises to help.” If they think they are scared, they are mistaken.”

Claims to the My History Foundation are caused not only by the activities on the territory of the excavations of the ancient settlement.

Now the buildings of the “New Chersonesos” complex are being erected nearby - construction is taking place on the site of a former military unit, which was moved to another area of ​​​​Sevastopol for the sake of expanding the Chersonesos territories.

“For the construction of these buildings, historical buildings on the territory of the former Divers School were completely destroyed. These are buildings of the Sevastopol fortress artillery of the early 20th century. Including very large, strong barracks, which certainly could have been preserved and included in this project. Well, apparently, the authors of the project were not interested in this,” Stepan Samoshin, deputy chairman of the Sevastopol branch of VOOPiK, expressed his point of view to the First Sevastopol Channel.

In his opinion, a paradoxical story has developed - those who, according to their tasks, are supposed to preserve the history of Sevastopol, on the contrary, perceive the city as a blank slate and do not take the context into account at all.

Samoshin also fears that as a result, instead of the “emphatically beautiful buildings in the style of the Byzantine architecture of Chersonesos” declared by the foundation, concrete boxes with decoration dissonant with St. Vladimir’s Cathedral, which remained the dominant feature on the territory of the museum-reserve, may appear.