The only Crimean UNESCO site was first destroyed by the Russian occupiers and is now being actively looted. Recently, the unique collections of the Chersonese Museum have been moved to a new building built outside the historical reserve. During the “move”, the occupiers destroyed tens of thousands of square meters of the quarter of the ancient settlement that has not been explored by archaeologists.

Russian propagandists regularly report on the progress of the transportation of exhibits of the historical reserve to the new building. Particular emphasis is placed on the fact that there is now enough space for all exhibits, including tens of thousands illegally obtained by Russian archaeologists during the years of occupation. However, the staff of the museum-reserve drew attention to the strange discrepancies between these statements and the actual orders of the administration.

“The building is really big. All the exhibits and open exhibitions would definitely fit there, and there would still be room for all sorts of things. But for some reason, some of the collections are not being moved here, but to the Museum of Antiquity and Byzantium. We are assured that this is a logical decision, but the only logic that suggests itself is that it is more convenient so that some exhibits are not “lost” and the scapegoat is not found,” says Oleksandr, an employee of the storage facility.

According to Oleksandr, the unfinished museum of antiquities is where the finds that have recently been deposited and have not yet been fully cataloged end up, which makes both the evaluation and accounting of exhibits very difficult. The historian also does not rule out the intention of the Russians to export the most valuable samples of the collections outside the peninsula under the pretext of another joint exhibition project. The occupiers have resorted to this practice many times before.

For example, the year before last, under the guise of an exhibition of gold items from the Byzantine Empire, more than two hundred valuable artifacts were transported from the Chersonesos Tavriya Museum to Russian territory, including frescoes, mosaics, smalt placers, church paraphernalia from former Chersonese churches, gold, bronze, clay, bone, and other materials. They had never left Sevastopol before.

The fact that the occupiers have clear plans to export the seized cultural property is also evidenced by the total looting of museums in the Kherson region, whose collections were “evacuated” to Crimea a few weeks before the liberation. And on the eve of the counteroffensive announced by Ukraine, a number of Crimean museums were ordered to start packing their most valuable exhibits.

“There are no sentiments about the national heritage, the memory of generations and the spiritual heritage of ancestors. The stuffed deer will be taken away as steadfastly as the oldest find from a Scythian tomb. Because barbarians who simply loot do not think about the meaning or consequences,” says Antonina, a former employee of one of the Crimean museums.

The occupiers are trying to justify their barbaric approach to ancient values with religious considerations. For example, a part of the territory of an ancient settlement was given to a monastery of the Moscow Orthodox Church without any further discussion. No one even mentioned the regime of protection of protected areas and requirements for the preservation of monuments. Apparently, this is because the project is supervised by the Russian dictator's personal confessor and recently the head of the Crimean diocese, Tikhon. In fact, the Crimeans explain the move of the museum's storage facility not by the fact that the old building was too small for museum workers, but only by its location next to St. Volodymyr's Cathedral, which is ideal for a monastery.

However, the real attitude of the Russian occupiers to the cultural values, history, and “sacredness” of Chersonesos was most clearly demonstrated during the construction of the New Chersonesos complex just behind the fence from the excavations of the ancient settlement. “We knew that there were archaeological remains there, and that they were very informative and powerful. Back in 2010-2013, we made pits on the edge of the military base and found out that the thickness of the cultural layer in this place is 14 meters. Moreover, these are well-stratified layers, they were visible to the naked eye,” recalls Evelina Kravchenko, a researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

It was on this site that the Russian president ordered the construction of the “grandiose” New Chersonese complex. Archaeological excavations on the vast territory intended for construction were carried out in a fantastically short time.

The first expedition of archaeologists to the site allocated for the project turned out to be, oddly enough, principled and flatly refused to approve construction work in the near future. The scientists confirmed that this land is home to an integral archaeological complex that is a continuation of the ancient city, and stated that construction should not be allowed.

This expedition was disbanded and more cooperative archaeologists were found instead. In seven months, the new researchers reported back: they had carried out all the rescue work quickly and efficiently, and construction could begin. For comparison, it took archaeologists around the world almost two hundred years to excavate the studied part of the settlement.

As a result, residents of Sevastopol filmed on their phones how excavators were using buckets to destroy the ancient structures that had been preserved underground, along with everything in them. The soil mixed with artifacts was simply unloaded onto dump trucks and taken to the city dump. Thus, for the sake of Putin's whim, world science irrevocably lost 8 hectares of an ancient settlement - and that all while Russia keeps talking about sacredness and staples.