Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the excavation site near the St Trinity Church in Novgorod, where he talked with archaeologists for nearly an hour. They are excavating an area that dates back to the 10th-11th centuries and have reported more than 1,300 finds.
The prime minister was shown the 1000th birch-bark manuscript, found in July this year. In the past, Novgorod residents used birch bark to write personal letters and exchange news. The first such manuscript was found at the excavation site on July 26, 1951. Scientists have established that a church secretariat was probably located on the site near the St Trinity Church they are excavating now, as the manuscripts often include requests for various objects needed for church operation.
Mr Putin was also shown a unique artefact, a leaden seal of Svyatoslav, the son of Yaroslav the Wise. Experts say the seal was probably worn on a neck chain or string. They showed the prime minister a unique handle of an ancient whip they found at the archbishop's residence in the Novgorod Kremlin. The inscription on the handle reads: "The devil is the fool's best friend." It also has images of animals and a man being flayed by that whip.
Mr Putin took part in the excavations: he sifted the soil from the excavation site and found an artefact. When the archaeologists said it was nothing of value, he asked if he could keep it.
The prime minister told the archaeologists that in 2010 the government would allocate over 450 million roubles for excavations and increase funding for a number of expeditions. He also promised to speed up the ratification of the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage and to draft legislation on archaeological excavations, which has become especially important due to the growing problem of illegal excavations.
Transcript of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: My greetings on the occasion: it was on July 26...
Yelena Rybina: Please stay, we are having a big party in the evening.
Vladimir Putin: I'll think about it. I thought it happened in 1959, but they say the first birch-bark manuscript was found in 1951, and the one you have found is the 1000th.
Yelena Rybina: It's the 1003rd.
Vladimir Putin: Really?
Valentin Yanin: I didn't think I would live to see this day. All those who witnessed the discovery of the first birch-bark manuscript have died. And this year we found the 1000th manuscript.
Vladimir Putin: None of the witnesses are here, but the manuscripts have been preserved. Curious, isn't it?
Yelena Rybina: Oh, when we found the 1000th manuscript we thought we needed something to give us hope that this would continue, and two hours later we found one more manuscript.
Vladimir Putin: This is great. And isn't it curious? There are pre-Christian names there...
Nikolai Makarov: Pagan.
Vladimir Putin: Pagan names, ones we've never heard before.
Yelena Rybina: These manuscripts have so many interesting facts about Russian history and not only the history of Novgorod.
Vladimir Putin: You told me that when you spoke about the manuscript you had found at the site of the ancient court building, and you said you found another manuscript years later and learned the outcome of the trial. I was very impressed.
Yelena Rybina: Yes, 30 years later.
Vladimir Putin: This is an incredible story, really incredible. On July 28 we will mark the Christianisation of Kievan Rus. A bill was approved in the State Duma - not a single person voted against it - to celebrate that day on July 28.
It was a highly important event for history and for Russia, and for its relations with Europe. I spoke about this in the Crimea a few days ago. In fact, it was the first big step to creating a common cultural space in Europe. Russia made a crucial choice, becoming a part of Europe in the spiritual sense. It was a big choice. We know that Vladimir the Great had several options but he chose Christianity.
Valentin Yanin: Mr Putin, I see you have become interested in archaeology. May I give you a word of advice?
Vladimir Putin: You can give me more than one word of advice. Go ahead.
Valentin Yanin: Mr Fursenko (Andrei Fursenko, the Minister of Education and Science) insists on the introduction of the Bologna Process in Russia.
Yelena Rybina: It has already been introduced.
Valentin Yanin: There is no archaeology in the Bologna Process. Archaeology has been crossed out of everything. But we cannot live without archaeology, because everything that concerns ancient history implies seeing artefacts, reading birch-bark manuscripts and so on.
Yelena Rybina: That is, writing history...
Valentin Yanin: This is why I suggest that an obligatory curriculum be introduced for humanities universities and teacher-training institutes to make archaeology one of the subjects they study on a par with other subjects.
Vladimir Putin: You know, there is no contradiction between the Bologna Process and the objective you have stated. Unfortunately, it has not yet been determined which department should be responsible for archaeology, which is currently financed through several channels.
Valentin Yanin: The time has come to make this decision.
Vladimir Putin: I agree. It could be done partly through the Culture Ministry and partly through the Academy of Sciences.
Valentin Yanin: Yes, certainly, the Academy of Sciences. We have here the director of the Academy's Institute of Archaeology.
Vladimir Putin: I know. We have allocated 2.2 billion roubles for these programmes, archaeology programmes, for the period from 2008 to 2012. This year's allocations will be approximately 450 million. On the whole, it is believed that these allocations should suffice, but then as they say, allocations are sufficient but they are never enough. I think we will try to adjust the allocations in the light of the problems we have discussed today to ensure the financing of individual projects, as your colleagues in the regions have proposed.
Valentin Yanin: Very good.
Vladimir Putin: And for additional funding to support people working on the digs, students and so forth. I will return to Moscow and we will sort this out quickly. How is your work going here? Are you satisfied?
Yelena Rybina: Let the students speak.
Vladimir Putin: Do you like working here? How is your work coming along?
Anton Chursin: Yes, we do. We are working hard and it's good work.
Miloslava Petukhova: Maybe even too hard.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, I was wondering, how did you find this birch-bark? I would probably not even have spotted it. It is so small and black.
Nikolai Makarov: This is manual work, painstaking sifting work. It is one of those things that will never change. No technology or modernised methods can be applied here; this is the students' manual labour and this is their responsibility. I started working on the Troitsky excavation 30 years ago, but I could never have imagined that the prime minister would come here to discuss archaeology with us like this.
Sergei Troyanovsky: Mr Putin, can you see the piles of earth there behind the cameramen? School and university students made that mound with the soil they moved by hand. Every summer we have to remove hundreds of cubic metres of ground because it is too much for us to store here. And we have sifted through all that earth by hand because that is the only way to do it.
Valentin Yanin: Mr Putin, look at the wall. Just imagine this eight-meter layer...
Yelena Rybina: By the way you are standing right in the middle of the 10th century.
Valentin Yanin: The middle of the 10th century. The age of Vladimir.
Remark: The beginning of Novgorod.
Yelena Rybina: Exactly, the beginning of Novgorod.
Sergei Troyanovsky: Everything that has been preserved here is not only due to people but also to our specific climate conditions: it is very humid here, and there is also the nearby Ilmen Lake. And generally the layer of occupation is something that is submersed in water, from which we first need to remove the water, we need to pump water out constantly, otherwise we would be in a swimming pool right now.
Let me say a couple of words about our underwater archaeological work. I have prepared a short pamphlet about it. I represent the Novgorod Museum and our active society for those interested in antiquity. We have been working by the Volkhov River since 2005 and have discovered a great ancient bridge, one of the most complicated elements in Novgorod's infrastructure. Its citizens would not have survived without this bridge, because the Volkhov River never freezes.
Vladimir Putin: The governor and I have just discussed the issue of building another bridge.
Sergei Troyanovsky: I hope it will not be a wooden one. Though that is also a great art, we have discovered wooden constructions from the 12th and13th century and they are absolutely unique. We presented a report about them last year during the first European conference in Regensburg. The participants were also amazed by our working conditions here: the complete lack of visibility underwater, the fact that we work in winter, because the water is more transparent and there is no maritime traffic. And there are thousands of artefacts, coins, stamps and everything else that fell in the water.
We are running the project jointly with Venice. We find a lot of things in common not only in the way of life, but in the political system of the Novgorod Republic as well. The conditions there in the lagoon and here by the Volkhov River encouraged self-organisation and self-government, everything that served as a basis for the republic's government institutions. Another aspect of our work is the search for sunken vessels. We are eager to find those ancient ships to further our programme to build a museum devoted to shipbuilding in Ancient Russia.
Yesterday saw Russian Navy Day celebrated. We would like to see the history of the Russian fleet starting not from the age of Peter the Great but from the 10th century.
Vladimir Putin: Who is organising the underwater work?
Sergei Troyanovsky: Right now we have a powerful organisation of divers. It is an amateur movement which started to develop in the Baltic States during the 1980s and which came to Novgorod in the 1990s.
They used to be among the best enthusiasts, and they have now become professional divers. They have been working on the Nord Stream project in the Baltic Sea and come to work in Novgorod every winter, from February till March. We are so lucky to have these academic and scientific resources and these professional divers who are able to work here under these conditions.
Vladimir Putin: But it is cold here.
Sergei Troyanovsky: Very cold.
Vladimir Putin: And the Volkhov River gets covered with ice...
Sergei Troyanovsky: No, it never freezes. It is a unique river; since the lake is quite shallow, the silt here is lifted and carried down the river by warm winter streams. That is why it only freezes when the temperature is very low, and working conditions there are quite extreme.
Vladimir Putin: So there's no ice on the river, then?
Sergei Troyanovsky: No.
Vladimir Putin: Somehow I never really noticed that.
Sergei Troyanovsky: The water is very turbid. If you swim there you will see it because you will end up covered in a peaty mass.
Vladimir Putin: And how do you get things out? Right from the silt?
Sergei Troyanovsky: The diver works on the bottom of the river. There's no silt there, and the layer of occupation there is, as we say, stratified. Some layers date from the 15th and 12th centuries.
Vladimir Putin: It is strange that the river's waters did not carry everything away.
Sergei Troyanovsky: Of course some of the items were carried off. But some of the river's turbulence and water currents leave everything. And the bridges that you see there created a structure which these items were drawn to, and they remained there in those places. There are dozens of items: coins, seals and unique small items.
Vladimir Putin: Yes I saw that. If it were the sea, it would be obvious, things stay down there for centuries. But this is something else...
Sergei Troyanovsky: Studying the trajectory of the items as they fell showed us that they hadn't moved far, and that they lay in a particular region, along the line of the bridge for 10 or 15 meters, not further.
Vladimir Putin: Very interesting.
Sergei Troyanovsky: We have also been working to develop underwater archaeology.
Nikolai Makarov: As the only person who does not come from Novgorod originally and who, to some extent, is responsible for the overall state of this field, I would like to point out that about 1,600 excavation projects were implemented in Russia last year. This highlights nationwide developments. This is a lot, but not quite enough, for such a country as Russia.
Vladimir Putin: Sixteen hundred, did you say?
Nikolai Makarov: Yes, 1,600. In all, 1,600 fieldwork permits were issued. Although the fieldwork is conducted on a varying scale, this highlights the activity in the field. The share of archaeology is quite impressive. Purely academic projects account for 25% of archaeological projects, with the rest being rescue work prior to start of construction. Three academic archaeology institutes annually publish about 150 books. We don't have the nationwide statistics. On the whole, though, archaeology and medieval Russian history is largely written by archaeologists because they know this five-metre cultural layer spanning a time period from Prince Vladimir to Grand Prince Ivan III the Great better than historians. Naturally, this is also true of earlier history. So we can safely say it is impossible to understand Russia's prehistory and history without archaeology.
On the whole, young people come in to work in this field. Many of them are sitting at this table today. Although the soil is sifted manually, we also use some modern technology. There are many new instruments and laboratories. Although their number is smaller than in the West and we are largely lagging behind in terms of technology, much is being done and the process is making headway. But we should probably discuss the problems in the field, too.
Vladimir Putin: Let's focus mostly on problems.
Nikolai Makarov: Really?
Vladimir Putin: Go ahead.
Nikolai Makarov: May I say a few words about problems? How do I see it? First, about the 25% which is purely academic research: although it is bad manners to talk about money in polite company, but we have now reached the point in Russia where if archaeological research is scaled down any further it would mean a major step backwards.
We should support this field, if only at a modest level. If we take the Trinity excavation site, for example, we need new research on the Greeks (you have seen Phanagoria today), on Derbent and other classic monuments that provide an insight into various cultures and Russia's cultural diversity, which you mentioned earlier, and its historical timeline. Otherwise we will keep cutting off the main historical timeline and focus on our modern history, the difficult past 150 years, and forget that humans had been developing Russian territory for the past 1,000 years, and this heritage belongs to the field of archaeology. So it is vital that scientific projects be implemented.
It is also important that serious scientific organisations be placed in charge of rescue archaeology here. As far as Europe is concerned, various state agencies, including museums, state cultural departments and universities implement rescue archaeology projects. This country used to have a similar system. However, archaeology has become largely commercialised today. For some reason, the administrations of many regions, except Novgorod, have decided that there is no need for state archaeological agencies and have abolished archaeology departments at museums and archaeology laboratories at universities. They were replaced with some shady companies that appear and disappear overnight, and they work on separate archaeological projects. But they do not publish any books or scientific articles. In effect, this purely commercial construction-related activity does nothing for the field of protecting our heritage. We would like academic institutions, universities and museums, which effectively combine the practical task of preserving the historical heritage with academic research, to continue working in the field of rescue archaeology.
Vladimir Putin: This is linked with another problem, that of illegal excavations.
Nikolai Makarov: That's right, Mr Putin. Can we discuss this issue?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, of course.
Nikolai Makarov: This issue is very painful. In all, 70,000 archaeological sites are registered with the Ministry of Culture. That is a much smaller figure than in France, which has 500,000 sites, but it is also very difficult to protect them there. Russia is a huge country, and it is impossible to post a policeman near each site. However, a number of cases linked with the plundering of the archaeological heritage are extremely serious and difficult.
Nikolai Makarov: I have worked in the field in many regions, and everywhere they tell me that historical monuments are being destroyed. For example, in Suzdal I have seen fresh traces of illegal excavation work at 70% of local sites. This means that people with detectors roam those excavation sites, removing all those seals and artefacts that were shown today and selling them all. And what seems extremely dangerous and alarming is that this illegal archaeology is now looking for some kind of public recognition. This illegal archaeology positions itself as an alternative archaeological filed, which also claims the right to exist. On the one hand, we have scientists and respectable academics, and on the other, there are some tough guys who arrive, do some digging, unearth more artefacts and post their finds on websites. A chalk-overlay paper edition was published this year ...
Vladimir Putin: They are called amateur archaeologists.
Remark: What kind of amateur archaeologists are they?!
Nikolai Makarov: Amateur archaeologists driving expensive SUVs ... This year a chalk-overlay paper edition listing a collection of these illegal artefacts was published. Nobody hides them anymore. Although everyone realises that these are not chance finds, and that they are part of our desecrated archaeological sites, nobody hides them today. There are some attempts ...
Vladimir Putin: At legalisation?
Nikolai Makarov: Yes, legalisation. This aspect should be thoroughly considered. I realise this is a very complicated field, and that it is impossible to find any easy solutions here. To be honest, this is not just our problem. As you know, Europe also faces this universal problem. All of us should think what can be done because otherwise we will lose a considerable part of our archaeological heritage.
Yelena Toropova: I would like to add that treasure hunting was outlawed in the Russian Empire. In our state, unfortunately, treasure hunting is not prohibited. And this means that anyone can take a metal detector and go looking for treasure. We cannot place a plaque at every single historical site, and in any case, we generally do not think that would be the right thing to do, because it would count as useful information for those very same looters. And as we see it - this is something we often discuss - perhaps it would make sense to introduce licensing for metal detectors, to limit the extent to which anyone can come in off the street, buy one and loot our national heritage.
Nikolai Makarov: They cost thirty to forty thousand, so they're affordable now.
Vladimir Putin: You know, we could, of course, introduce licensing, but I don't think that this would seriously limit unlawful excavation. To do that, they need to be recognised as unlawful, as you rightly said. But in our country, this issue is not regulated on a legal level. We need to discuss this issue with your professional expert community and with the public. I will certainly ask our party in the State Duma, United Russia, to work on this, to think about it, carry out serious consultations involving, of course, I'll say it again, the expert community, and then to come to some sort of common solution. It is indeed such a delicate issue, but it is totally unregulated. This does not mean that we need to prohibit everything, but we do need to regulate it. Even though it was prohibited in the Russian Empire, we just visited excavations on the Taman Peninsula. Isn't this how the excavations started? The soldiers were just digging a trench. This is how it started.
Yelena Toropova: Nevertheless, returning to the Novgorod province. There are very interesting documents in the archive of the History of Material Culture Institute proving that treasure hunters readily confessed to the relevant authorities and their finds made their way either into the imperial archaeological commission or the State Hermitage. And, by all appearances, this was all tightly controlled at the level of district police and so on.
Vladimir Putin: Let's work through this. We will do this for sure.
Alexander Smirnov: I would like to add a specific example. Alexander Smirnov, St Petersburg, History of Material Culture Institute. We are excavating at the Rurik Hill Fort site. And every year when we go back to the dig after winter, we find that the whole shoreline, the field and the entire hill where this hill fort stands are riddled with holes dug by people with metal detectors. I understand that you can't put a guard at every site, but first of all, some kind of criminal liability or some serious administrative liability is needed. Second, the local authorities do need to be involved somehow.
Remark: Police surveillance.
Alexander Smirnov: Here are two specific examples. Last year, some girls went swimming and saw a person with a metal detector in use right then while the archaeological excavation work was underway. But we found him, detained him and called the police. The police arrived and wrote something down. I asked the police, what they were going to do. They answered "We will hold him for three hours and then release him." Then I asked "Will you take his metal detector?" and they said, "No, we can't take it away."
We came here in autumn. Again we found someone with a metal detector. I called the police. I was told that they had no time right now but that they might be able to come out tomorrow.
Vladimir Putin: I see.
Nikolai Makarov: By law, by the way, they could arrest someone for using a metal detector, because the amendment that Mr Kibovsky (Alexander Kibovsky, head of the Federal Service for Monitoring Compliance with Cultural Heritage Protection Law) pushed through comes under the administrative code, and it is operational.
Alexander Smirnov: These are two specific examples...
Sergei Troyanovsky: If we could continue, Mr Putin.
Vladimir Putin: The examples show that it's not working very well.
Sergei Troyanovsky: Since we are in Novgorod, I would like to say that as archaeologists, we also feel responsible for, perhaps, the dearth of education on this matter. Because many people really think that excavation simply means removing valuables from the earth. So you are here at the dig, and you probably saw that we're trying to popularise the work of archaeologists in every way possible, sort of like bringing it online. In other words, anyone interested could come to Novgorod, visit the dig and see how it is done. Everything here is important: the layers, the structure, constructions and finds, so that it does not remain some arcane secret, of clannish interest to archaeologists.
Vladimir Sedov: Vladimir Sedov, the Institute of Archaeology. I would like to draw attention to a special complex of sites that also merits special attention. These are architectural and archaeological sites. For example, in the environs of Novgorod, there are six monastery sites that are considered federally-protected architectural sites. In fact, they are already in ruins or covered by a hill. There are some frescoes inside them. These are very rare sites, the Skovorodsky and Kirillov monasteries, which are very difficult to access; they are separated by several small rivers. So where should we excavate? As you saw today, Ilya Antipov showed you, this is a common situation where a building is standing, it is excavated and the restorers come straight away.
A very serious problem in Novgorod and sites across Russia, which mostly have not been accounted for, then... you start to excavate them, and you find a stone church. What do you do then? Bury it all again, as is usually done? Then they are left there again, underground, and nobody sees them. This means that after excavations like this, the restorers should come in.
We need to develop a project to illustrate this. This is not purely a Novgorod problem - I could name 15 similar sites around Pskov. These are monasteries demolished in the Soviet era where there are 15th and 16th century churches that are half in ruins or buried under hills. There are probably a total of about 45 to 50 of these unique sites in Russia. But they present a particular difficulty, because in these cases we can't limit ourselves to just excavation; after excavating we need to find a way of turning them into museums or of restoring them and finding a way to exhibit them.
One businessman here in the Novgorod Region is putting crosses on such hills, which is good as it lets people know where they are. But in general I am referring to very fragile, very delicate sites, and something must be done about them. I hope that I haven't been talking for too long. But, for example, I know about the Skovorodsky and Kirillov monasteries, and there are a few more monasteries which I won't name...
In Kirillov, the site of the church and two refectories, there are some small 18th-century towers, the church itself dates from the 12th century, which are surrounded by water and it's simply hard to get there.
I know about the Skovorodsky monastery, where a local restorer, using modest means, tried and in fact found the frescoes. The site is known from pre-war photographs.
It seems to me that we need something else here. Perhaps these actions are connected with the fact that before the Revolution an archaeological commission had these oversight powers. In other words, we need some kind of government regulation here, perhaps an inventory of such sites.
Vladimir Putin: Did there used to be a government commission?
Vladimir Sedov: Yes, an imperial one. It combined oversight, licensing and research functions. An imperial archaeological commission.
Vladimir Putin: We don't have anything like that today?
Remark: There is a cooperation agreement between the Academy and the Federal Service for Federal Monitoring Compliance with Cultural Heritage Protection Law. It is working as it should and they collaborate well.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, but there is no administrative structure that would help resolve such...
Remark: After the Revolution, this commission became the State Academy of the History of Material Culture, the successor of which was the History of Material Culture Institute in St Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, but that is a research establishment. It doesn't have any administrative functions. We need to think about this. At the same time, we need to consider strengthening the legal base and administrative supervision. As for your concerns, they are clear and evident. But, of course, it would be very expensive.
We then simply need to include these expenses in the budgets of relevant organisations in a timely fashion. But we probably don't have any idea how much they will cost, because only after the excavation work will we have a rough idea of the extent of the subsequent work that is needed, and we need to include this in the budget even before the excavation starts.
Vladimir Sedov: Mr Putin, this is only one side of the whole issue of archaeology itself. But the expenses are rather insignificant. So perhaps it would make sense to turn our attention to this.
Vladimir Putin: I'm thinking, whom should we allocate resources to in this case? We probably need to allocate some to the Ministry of Culture; this probably needs to be done through the Ministry of Culture. Alright. We will think about it and see. This does not mean that we will start restoration tomorrow, but it is a good idea and I will certainly speak with the ministry about this. We need to at least determine the amount. To take the first step.
Sergei Troyanovsky: There is an essential aspect here concerning the total lack of what is, for us, a very important and strong connection between restoration work at architectural sites and archaeological research. The Ministry of Culture is quite methodically removing archaeology from funding applications for this work. Archaeology is forced to find its own funding. And, in addition, say, if restoration work is made VAT-free, then we, unfortunately, are forced to pay this, even though, as you understand, we share a common area of activity: preserving our heritage. This situation started to develop in the early 1990s and we're waiting for it to be straightened out somehow, so that restorers and archaeologists see that they are doing the same job and paying the same taxes.
Vladimir Putin: I don't understand - what do archaeologists pay VAT on?
Sergei Troyanovsky: On our operations, including on excavations. I lead the archaeology section of the museum and I know that we have to pay 17%.
Yevgeny Nosov: But not on state-sponsored expeditions...
Sergei Troyanovsky: If they're academic, then we don't, that's true, but a museum, for example, has to pay; we are not exempt from tax.
Nikolai Makarov: But research institutions don't pay.
Dmitry Kurilenko: Mr Putin, a very paradoxical situation is arising in which expeditions are allocated a certain sum of money, this money is spent on buying some kind of materials and to pay the people, and from those wages that are say, paid to students who come to work, they are paid, if only a small amount, they are still paid. But then we also have to pay tax on this money. In other words, in essence, ostensibly we receive a lot of money, but however much it is, it is still not very much, and even then this money is deducted...
Vladimir Putin: This is a general rule. Taxes must be paid. Here, the situation can be improved differently, by increasing salaries. We need to pay people more.
Yelena Toropova: I'm Yelena Toropova from Novgorod State University. I'd like to touch upon one more important issue, the preservation of our archaeological heritage. The situation in the country has changed dramatically because of the economic development and privatisation of land. As for the documents for known archaeological sites, - there are about 40,000 of them in Russia, aren't there, Dr Makarov?
Nikolai Makarov: We believe there are 49,000, but the Culture Ministry puts the figure at 70,000.
Yelena Toropova: So, there are about 50,000 known sites, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Archaeological expeditions discover new sites every year. But even the known sites - their boundaries have not been established to this day, although the federal law No. 73 stipulates compiling an inventory within five years. Some of these sites are on privately owned land and we have no access to them.
Last year we compiled an inventory of sites in the Demyansk District, near Lakes Vilye and Seliger, and there were sites we could not access. These problems are growing exponentially.
As far as I know, no financing has been approved for the delineation of the boundaries of archaeological sites or for establishing their legal status. I think this is a very serious problem, which merits your attention.
Vladimir Putin: We should also consider ways to ensure access to sites in any case, irrespective of their form of ownership, the same as in the case of forests.
Yelena Toropova: Yes, possibly.
Vladimir Putin: Forests can be leased but this does not mean they can be closed to the public. The same policy should be adopted with [archaeological sites]. They could be located on privately owned land, but the buyers of such land plots or buildings must be aware that they include an archaeological site and that special rules apply to such sites. They must know this before making the purchase.
Yelena Toropova: That is, there must be certain limitations.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, exactly. There must be limitations regarding the use of such sites and the land on which they are located. We must consider this issue. I have made a note for myself.
Yelena Rybina: I think we should return to the problem of education, which has been outlined earlier, because we will not get anywhere without professional archaeologists, and without training for professional archaeologists.
Vladimir Putin: But I thought we have a good school and train good professionals.
Yelena Rybina: There are considerable problems with the Bologna Process now. We were very hard put last academic year to retain the Chair of Archaeology at Moscow University. We no longer offer the degree but at least we have retained the curriculum in full. But there is no hope to have archaeology recognised as a profession because it does not exist in any state registers, although, in fact, it is the backbone of humanities. The sources for historic studies come from archaeologists.
Remark: And what is important is that we had it until recently. It all worked perfectly well. The crux of the matter is not in the Bologna Process because it envisages two levels of tuition. So the problem lies elsewhere. The degree is gone and we have only general history left. That's all.
Vladimir Putin: That's what I was going to say. The Bologna Process has nothing to do with it. These decisions have been made in Russia, and the Bologna Process has nothing to do with them.
Yelena Toropova: The problem is that the curriculum should include special disciplines and moreover, archaeology envisages practical training for students who want to become professional archaeologists. A two-week practical course is not enough to teach students to excavate archeological sites.
Vladimir Putin: I see. But don't history departments offer this degree?
Yelena Toropova: There is no such degree as archaeology any more.
Nikolai Makarov: The problem is that the Bologna Process envisages only a Master's degree in archaeology, which takes two years, while our present special course starts in the second year of undergraduate studies and lasts for four years. So the Bologna system halves the course time.
Remark: That's true of Moscow University, while Leningrad University always started archaeology courses from the first year.
Vladimir Putin: Is it still taught this way?
Remark: Yes, it is, but the tuition time has been reduced drastically because the degree has been abolished and only general history remains.
Vladimir Putin: Has this degree been abolished altogether?
Remark: Yes, it's gone. I am a professional historian and archaeologist. I graduated from university in 1971, and I have my specialisation is indicated in my degree certificate.
Vladimir Putin: Is there no such degree now?
Remark: No, there isn't.
Remark: I haven't got it in my certificate.
Vladimir Putin: Even before the Bologna Process...
Remark: Yes, before... The profession still exists but the university degree has been abolished.
Vladimir Putin: Law departments also have only one specialisation there, jurisprudence, while there are many more specialisations in reality.
Timur Churakov: My name is Timur Churakov. I am a sixth year student at St Petersburg State University. I would like to add that the St Petersburg and Moscow universities have the right to set their own educational standards and establish their own forms of tuition. I mean that the university intends to abolish part-time and distance learning programmes.
Remark: They have abolished them already.
Timur Churakov: It is very important for us to preserve these forms of tuition because half the students at my department are enrolled in the evening programme so can they work. I think the autonomy law should be reconsidered.
Yelena Rybina: In Moscow we haven't gone that far yet.
Remark: There is only one department left that hasn't abolished these programmes, and there will be no enrolment in the part-time and distance learning programmes at all in St Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin: That's the university's right. I'll talk to the rector. He is a reasonable man. But as I understand it, this right has been granted to universities.
Timur Churakov: It's a big problem for the faculty, too, because teaching hours have been cut.
Vladimir Putin: I think the university authorities want to streamline expenditures and concentrate them on the essentials. I will certainly talk to the rector. I cannot say what decision will be taken because the issue should be considered thoroughly.
Ilya Antipov: My name is Ilya Antipov. I am a professor at St Petersburg State University, Chair of Russian Art History, and I am in charge of the archaeological expedition excavating Vasily Kalika's chambers. We are very distressed, of course, because part-time students have to drop out. Many of them are better than full-time students because they already have jobs in the same field as their future profession, mainly at museums.
We used to have distance learning students from all over Russia. It's a real pity they have to leave, including the archaeology students.
Remark: The part-timers are the most dedicated students because they have to work much harder to succeed. I studied like Timur at two departments at once, enrolled full-time at one of them and part-time at the other. Now, no one will have such an opportunity. It means people who want to do academic research will be unable to get the education they need.
Vladimir Putin: This, too, should be discussed with your university authorities. I will talk to Mr Kropachev (St Petersburg University rector).
Remark: Thank you. We hope this will have an effect.
Andrei Dolgikh: My name is Andrei Dolgikh. I am an archaeological soil scientist, and I work at the Geography Institute.
You know, we all love science, and we continue studying. We have raised the question of education now. Young researchers are faced with another problem: they need to find jobs in their field. We want to do research but there are no staff appointments for young specialists. Unfortunately, it is becoming extremely difficult to get on the staff of an institute of the Academy of Sciences or any other research institute because, though there is a job placement programme for young scientists, it has not been developed thoroughly. So in the end, a person like me, for example, who has a postgraduate degree, finds it very hard to join the staff of my own institute.
We realise science is less profitable than business. We are in it for the satisfaction it gives us, and we really produce new knowledge. But when there are no staff appointments... And then, we have rents to pay and families to support ...
Vladimir Putin: Everyone realises that we cannot have inflated numbers of personnel at publicly funded organisations. You were right when you said that a staff member's salary is not a great burden on the state. But there are other issues to address, too, such as housing. But on the whole, we grant the applications of the Academy of Sciences and its institutes. Possibly they want more than that. They probably do. But we try to grant them what they apply for and, as you know, we have recently increased the funding for the Academy of Sciences several-fold.
I think at present humanities do not receive the attention they deserve. That is true. We can only regret that this has always been so.
However, I will talk to the Academy authorities about it. You don't need very much, after all. How many staff researchers have you got?
Nikolai Makarov: Our Moscow institute has 153 on the staff. Another 70 or so have extra-budgetary salaries thanks to rescue excavations. We have employed five young specialists in the past five years and secured staff salaries for them, and there are roughly 20 young people with extra-budgetary salaries. This is a convenient arrangement, which allows people to get on with research without increasing the load on the budget. The salaries the Academy granted us four years ago were good but if even a modest amount was allocated again now, it would be an impetus for further progress: at least some new blood will come in ...
Vladimir Putin: What do you mean by a modest amount?
Nikolai Makarov: You see, four young people who were hired at the institute made a huge difference because they changed the atmosphere, somehow ...
Vladimir Putin: When did you take them on?
Nikolai Makarov: About three years ago.
Vladimir Putin: So it's time to take on four more people?
Nikolai Makarov: Yes, it is. You see, it is all a cluster of problems, including the issue of retirement. A doctor of sciences earns 25,000 roubles a month. When he retires, his pension is ten or even nine thousand a month, so his income shrinks threefold. What can we do about it? I have no big funds to distribute. People have to share one staff salary. I have four people sharing one salary. Each receives a quarter. But then, these people can get benefits. They are staff researchers entitled to annual bonuses and suchlike. They keep their jobs and go on working.
But we can follow the Ukrainian pattern. I've heard that major academics can retain about 20,000 roubles a month of their salary in Ukraine. If we had it that way, we could be more resolute about the personnel problem. How do you sack a person after working side by side with him for thirty or even forty years, if it's a hard-working professional and a great thinker? But you have to sack him when you take on a young person. If we had more elbowroom with funds... After all, we do not have many doctors of sciences, and we should treat them better, the way they do in Kiev.
Vladimir Putin: Could you tell me again just how they do it, please? We are aware of the problem, and we understand that it's different from what we have in other sectors. The retirement age is a sheer formality in academic institutions but the aging problem exists and we cannot conserve them the way the clay soil in Novgorod preserves birch-bark manuscripts. The way to solve the personnel problem is to take on new people. Still, I agree that we need tact. Tell me once again what they are doing there. Do you think it helps?
Nikolai Makarov: Major academics in Ukraine have a pension that amounts to two thirds of their salary, and so retirement is not such a shock, you see. Unlike our scientists, who go down to eight or nine thousand from a 26,000 rouble salary...
Vladimir Putin: That's the wage replacement rate.
Nikolai Makarov: It might be. I don't know the term.
Vladimir Putin: That's the difference between the wage and...
Nikolai Makarov: We should be more resolute about it.
Vladimir Putin: That's meant for academics.
Nikolai Makarov: For leading academics, not the entire staff, of course.
Yelena Rybina: Mr Putin, if I may bring up another issue that does not concern money at all. Russia is one of the few European countries that have not signed the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage to this day.
Vladimir Putin: It has.
Yelena Rybina: But it has not ratified it yet.
Vladimir Putin: We have signed but not ratified it.
Nikolai Makarov: I cannot see why. The document does not impose any extraordinary obligations on us but it is an essential instrument that lays the scientific foundation for preserving the archaeological heritage.
When we meet with our European colleagues, they look at us askance: does Russia pursue a special policy? Do you have a dissenting opinion and why? The convention is a very reasonable document that stipulates the scientific foundation for the treatment of archaeological heritage as a source of new knowledge about the past. These are sound precepts which our national legislation omits. I think its ratification would help us to cooperate with our European colleagues on equal terms and change their attitude towards us.
Vladimir Putin: We signed the convention back in 1992 but have not ratified it yet. This really causes problems in our relations with colleagues abroad. Even Ukraine refused last year to let our experts take part in the Crimean excavations because we have not ratified it. We will get back to this subject later. You are absolutely right. You have brought up an important issue, and it deserves further discussion.
Nikolai Makarov: I have another question, if I may. We find many ancient objects during excavations, and these things must be stored somewhere. Huge archaeological collections were compiled in the previous decade. The law binds us to cede the finds to museums within three years.
The current situation is paradoxical. Museums are not eager to accept these collections and are hard put to accept them because their storage space is limited and the collections are very large. Most often museums accept the most spectacular finds and do not want to have the more mundane objects. At the same time, the world practice demands that we preserve a part of wooden articles from Novgorod, some pottery and other objects that may not be as valuable as museum exhibits but have great cognitive value. Everyone is doing research on ancient DNA now. In the Soviet times we were not allowed to preserve the bones from ancient graves, so now when we receive proposals to conduct DNA studies on Bronze Age remains to study our origins, we cannot do anything. We have excavated vast necropolises but did not preserve any of the bones. So the money has been spent but there is no material for research.
I do not want the collections we have compiled in recent years to share this fate. Perhaps special depositories should be made to preserve them. They would not be too expensive because ordinary finds, be they bones or pottery, do not require any special storage conditions. They can be kept in unheated premises that are not renovated to a high standard. This is something to consider and do something about it.
I think some recommendations from the Ministry of Culture would be useful. At any rate, we should start thinking about it. We will not be able to find a solution quickly but something should be done.
Vladimir Putin: Should these depositories be attached to museums?
Nikolai Makarov: I think that would be best.
Vladimir Putin: If you mean ordinary finds, the depositories will not cost much.
Nikolai Makarov: Of course they will not. Look, these are some wood samples from Novgorod. There is a heat wave now, and you see the history of the climate in the thickness of these annual growth rings. This wood is a unique material to study the history of East European climate. If we lose it, we will have to start over with the Trinity excavations and collect the necessary samples, which will cost huge amounts of money. It will be far cheaper and more practical to preserve a part of what we have collected already.
Vladimir Putin: Are they from the 10th century?
Remark: Yes, the 10th.
Vladimir Putin: What was the climate like then?
Response: Very warm, Mr Putin. The periods when Russia expanded northward always corresponded to the warmer ages. The 10th and 12th centuries, when Russians were actively moving northward, had the optimum climate.
Vladimir Putin: Was it as hot as now?
Remark: Yes, to all appearances, the climate was hot and humid. That was why they were able to start farming and land cultivation here. It was because of this optimum climate that Slavs got a firm footing in the North.
Present-day archaeology gives us a perspective on general history, which is why it is so important. We have climate data arranged in columns. It is all well developed and highly reliable.
Vladimir Putin: If we see what was in the past and extrapolate it to the future, can we say when we will have cooler weather?
Remark: There's no one from the Futurology Institute here... We were told at seminars that we would soon have a cold spell.
Vladimir Putin: Who's that speaking?
Dmitry Kurilenko: An expert on the Stone Age.
Sergei Troyanovsky: Mr Putin, can I mention another practical aspect? It concerns this unique occupation layer. You have seen the exceptional state of preservation of our finds. Objects that are several thousand years old lie under our feet as if they were dropped yesterday. We understand what we owe this miracle to: Novgorod lies in a hollow of a lake, and was surrounded by ramparts and moats. That was how it had preserved all this up to the 20th century. But pipe-laying and other ground work drain the layer. As it dries, it reduces our birch-bark manuscripts to dust.
We have tried several times to apply to different foundations, including the Presidential Foundation, to launch the monitoring of the layer to see where it is drying, where the water level has changed and where the soil has become chemically more aggressive towards organic substances. We are blind without such monitoring: we do not know what is drying and where, though archaeologists who worked in the city in the 1950s and 1960s saw the quality of wood badly deteriorating.
Vladimir Putin: What does layer monitoring require?
Sergei Troyanovsky: A borehole to see seasonal water fluctuations and chemical changes.
Vladimir Putin: Is a borehole necessary?
Sergei Troyanovsky: Yes, even a network of boreholes, in particular, near excavation sites, which are also drying out as far as we can judge.
Vladimir Putin: Will the works be based in Novgorod?
Sergei Troyanovsky: Yes, we should perfect the method here at least.
Vladimir Putin: What will the programme cost?
Sergei Troyanovsky: We have calculated ceiling and threshold expenditures and found that the entire network will cost about 15 million roubles.
Vladimir Putin: Is it the minimum cost or the maximum?
Sergei Troyanovsky: The minimum.
Vladimir Putin: All right.
Remark: Staraya Russa has the same situation.
Sergei Troyanovsky: It is our city, too.
Remark: It can happen in any city.
Vladimir Putin: Where is the funding to come from?
Sergei Troyanovsky: I think it could be from the Ministry of Culture as part of heritage protection efforts because the occupation layer is protected.
Vladimir Putin: How soon can the works be launched?
Sergei Troyanovsky: I think the borehole design could start even next year and the boreholes will be ready by 2012. That is, the programme itself will take two or three years and subsequent monitoring will require several years.
Vladimir Putin: We will make necessary allocations this year.
Sergei Troyanovsky: Thank you.
Dmitry Kurilenko: Mr Putin, I have a question. This excavation site and the other sites I have visited are documented in pencil on plotting paper, like in the 19th century, even though this is a computer age.
There is a gauge called electronic laser tachometer. Our Chair has one. I mean our university. There is only one for all students. Naturally, we cannot acquire the skills we need and work properly in this situation, while such gauges are quite common in Europe. We are badly lagging behind. Can we hope to get a grant to buy another one, which we need? It costs roughly 300,000.
Vladimir Putin: In what currency?
Dmitry Kurilenko: Roubles, of course.
Vladimir Putin: All right.
Yevgeny Nosov: Mr Putin, we all want to ask you what has moved you to come to Novgorod? Whose idea was it? Who should we thank for it?
Vladimir Putin: First, today is a festive occasion. Second, this is not the first time I am here. I have visited this very site already, and some others, too. I have also seen excavations in the South Urals and in Staraya Ladoga.
I think your work is extremely important. It helps us to understand our identity, and there is hardly anything more important than the sense of one's identity. That is why I wish you every success.
I have put down everything we talked about. Many essential issues have been raised here. We will certainly work on the legal basis. As for archaeology as an academic degree, I will certainly discuss it with the minister, though I am not sure how soon the decision will be made. Access to monuments also pertains to the law. I will talk to the St Petersburg University rector. I am not sure what decision he will make. It is up to university administration but I will call his attention to the problem of part-time and distance learning programmes.
We will make it possible for your institute to take on four new staff members. Which institute were you talking about? The one in Moscow? So we will increase the funding of the Archaeology Institute by four staff positions.
I will think about the wage replacement rate in the retirement law. At present, I am not ready to say what we will do about it and whether it is worthwhile ...
Nikolai Makarov: I think it is. Personnel placement will be easier that way.
Vladimir Putin: Wage replacement must increase in the entire national economy. It is our goal. But should we do it selectively for leading researchers? We will think about it.
We will speed up the ratification of the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage. As for depositories, it is a more complicated matter: even though it may not involve expensive construction, but it is construction nevertheless. We will see what we can do about it. After all, it doesn't require major investment.
Now, what did you say that instrument is called?
Nikolai Makarov: Tachometer.
Vladimir Putin: And we will fund the occupation layer monitoring system to launch the works this year.
Nikolai Makarov: We don't want to appear beggars, so we would like to present you with a book about the forty greatest Russian archaeological discoveries of the 1990s and 2000s. They were made in Novgorod, Staraya Ladoga, Phanagoria and Derbent, which took part in today's teleconference. This book shows what archaeology gives us. We do not only ask - we also do much for our museums.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.