The battle for the historical appearance of monastery buildings continues in Chersonesos

Local historians of Sevastopol continue to seek the protection of the former buildings of the Chersonese Monastery, which now houses the exhibition of the Tauric Chersonese Museum-Reserve.

However, Sevnasledie officials do not want to get involved with the directorate of the federal institution, which will have to redo the renovation projects for buildings after they are recognized as cultural and historical monuments, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

The confrontation began after Sevnaslediye refused to recognize the former refectory of the Chersonesos Monastery as a culturally valuable object. Now the building houses the Antique Department of the Tauride Chersonese Museum-Reserve. The exhibition halls no longer resemble a monastic monastery, but this does not make the historical value any lower. According to all the criteria established by Sevnasledie, the building should receive protected status as a newly identified cultural heritage site. Arguments that it is already located on territory protected by federal law are not convincing. An example of this was the former house of the abbot of the Chersonesos monastery, whose historical appearance (the building is 160 years old) was damaged after major repairs.

In addition, if officials contradict their own manuals, there is a certain intent in this. One cannot simply ignore the dating of the building, its architectural and artistic value, authorship and inclusion in scientific circulation and special social significance.

The objectivity of the assessment was challenged at a meeting of the scientific and methodological council at Sevnasledie and officials were recommended to reconsider the application.

“It turns out like this: we are looking at one building under a magnifying glass, although, from my point of view, there are all the indicators here to score these 200 points and still give it the status of an object of cultural heritage,” NTS quotes a certified specialist from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation on the restoration of cultural heritage objects of Anatoly Pryashnikov. – The remaining objects, which, by the way, sometimes do not deserve to be objects of cultural heritage, we add them to the register. This is the injustice. And from my point of view, there is some kind of bias. I’m a straightforward person, and I’ll say: I have the impression that telephone law is involved here.”

It was under “telephone law,” according to Stepan Samoshin, deputy chairman of the Sevastopol branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, that the procedure for registering newly identified objects was determined. The criteria by which value is determined are truly uniform. But only in Sevastopol the points are given by Sevnaslediya employees, and not by the expert community, for discussion of which applicants for protective status should be submitted.

“The criteria really had to be approved according to the government order. But the creation of the commission, in my opinion, is groundless and illegal. Nowhere is it mentioned that such a commission needs to be created and, moreover, that it should be from among its own employees, without a single person from the outside. Such commissions are being created in other regions of Russia. But it is important that they are created each time for each object. Owners and architects are invited. For every object. So that this is comprehensive and objective,” Samoshin emphasized.

Deputy Director of the Chersonese Tauride Museum-Reserve Tatyana Sarapulkina believes that there is no guarantee of the building’s safety from being given the status of a cultural heritage site, since there is not enough money for restoration. Whereas the monastery refectory specifically needs repairs to the leaking roof, which can take a long time. Moreover, the museum-reserve has the task of preserving archaeological objects of antiquity.

“For the territory of the federal monument “Tavrichesky Chersonesus,” these buildings of the XNUMXth century are discordant buildings,” said the deputy director of the institution. – I am convinced of this, and will always be. I understand that this territory received a second cultural and historical layer in the XNUMXth century. But excuse me, there are, roughly speaking, a lot of XNUMXth-century monasteries in the country. I don't deny its value. But the Tauride Chersonese and the ancient polis are in this state on the territory of Russia, in principle, alone.”