Ancient Rus’ streets being bulldozed

The scope of the construction boom in Kyiv has reached the point that excavators are destroying unique historic sites. Not so long ago, a developer’s construction team, which was getting ready to start building an office center at 23-25 Frunze Street, destroyed over 4,000 m? of cultural stratum dating back to Kyivan Rus’. Vsevolod Ivakin, a research fellow at the Kyiv Archaeology Center, told The Day: “This was once part of the Podil district with homes, streets, and cemeteries. Developers have destroyed all this and dumped it God knows where. Now we won’t be able to restore these historical treasures.”

According to Ivakin, the builders started working without having the site examined by archaeologists. They completely ignored the fact that the site where they are getting ready to erect a building is located on the grounds of the Ancient Kyiv Preserve.

The archaeologist added that the developer’s company breached the contract. A team of archaeologists was supposed to carry out a dig on this site in April 2008 because in the winter the ground is frozen and it is difficult to dig. But the builders began their work without waiting for the archaeological examination. During the New Year’s celebrations they quietly began digging the foundation pit and managed to excavate it to a depth of six or seven meters. The case is now under investigation, Ivakin said.

Experts with the Institute of Archaeology at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine say that several acts of vandalism at archaeological sites have been recorded. They frequently happen during construction work. According to current legislation, every developer must receive the go- ahead from archaeologists before starting construction.

History professor Hlib Ivakin had this to say: “Almost all of downtown Kyiv is part of an area that has immense historic importance. The officials that allowed this construction project should have remembered this fact. The number of written sources is comparatively stable, so any fresh data can be expected almost exclusively from archaeological sources. This requires a more cautious attitude to archaeological sites because they are easy to destroy and impossible to restore. Although the Law of Ukraine ‘On the Protection and Use of Historical and Cultural Monuments warns that ‘in the event of a discovery of archaeological sites while carrying out work, enterprises, organizations, institutions must inform the state authority for the protection of monuments, and put a halt to the work’ (Article 35), this doesn’t happen often these days, unfortunately.”

After the construction team destroyed the cultural monuments of ancient Rus’ on Frunze Street, the work to prepare the ground for the development did not stop. However, Ruslan Kukharenko, the head of Kyiv’s cultural heritage directorate, said that those who are responsible will have to pay a fine equivalent to 100 before-tax minimum salaries and face criminal prosecution, including a prison term. It is also true that no one at the Institute of Archaeology or the Center for the Protection of Historical, Archaeological, and Art Monuments can remember anyone ever being convicted for destroying historic sites.