Archaeologists say cave complex must be preserved for ‘indisputable and cultural value’
When [Dmytro Perov] was a child, his grandmother said somewhere on the land around the former family home were rumoured to be ancient caves. He described it as a “small family legend”. Ukraine is home to a few cave complexes, most of which were built by monks, the most famous being Kyiv’s Pecherska Lavra – or Cave Monastery in English.1
So far they have discovered the entrances to four tunnels in and around the hills behind the house. The upper tunnel, which is the most accessible, stretches for 40 metres, and the lower one, said Perov, is twice as long. Inside the tunnels are rooms and cubbyholes which leading archaeologists believe may have been used to place lanterns.
- 1. Perov decided that this might be his last chance to discover whether his grandmother’s tale was true. He and his friends, who like him are preservation activists, went to the site and climbed around the ruins of his grandmother’s house. Perov spotted some bushes and a pile of bricks in one corner on the hillside. There he found the entrance to tunnel burrowing into the hill. He and his friends climbed in, using their phones as torches.
Despite the find, the developers and their allies in Kyiv’s city council are continuing to push for planning permission and the vote on the site has not been removed from the agenda. Perov, together with Kyiv councillors, archaeologists, and the deputy head of Ukraine’s culture ministry, are gathering the documents necessary to classify the area as protected before the council’s next vote.
But efforts of this kind are not always successful. Perov’s fight is part of an bigger effort by civil society actors against the rampant corruption among the country’s elites, a longstanding problem in Ukraine that has endured despite the war. Bobrovskyy has described it as a “second front”.
Ukraine’s parliament just adopted a controversial new urban planning law, which has already garnered enough complaints via an online petition that it may be soon been repealed.
Its advocates believe it will reduce corruption by digitalising much of the process. But critics say it gives power to a single ministry and excludes scrutiny by NGOs and local councils.
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