A total of 5 million roubles will be found.
Yesterday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived in Novgorod to inspect the archaeological excavation project there. Kommersant's special correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov describes how the prime minister promised to learn whether Rurik ever existed and how he decided to deal with "black-market archaeologists."
Unlike Vladimir Putin's Saturday visit to Sevastopol, when he appeared in public surrounded by bikers, the prime minister's entourage consisted of three helicopters that landed right on the central square of the city. No Russian city has ever witnessed such an arrival, except in one case: Putin landed 100 meters from the Novgorod Kremlin, thus repeating Mathias Rust's deed.
This spectacle shocked people around the square near a sign that read "Good people." Awe gave way to relief, as people felt the rush of cool air from the three giant helicopter fans in the otherwise hot day.
Novgorod Regional Governor Sergei Mitin followed the prime minister around everywhere. While crossing the square, the governor quickly told the prime minister about the reconstruction project for the square. "We will put up a monument to Russian troops (Narodnoye Opolcheniye), we will also keep the Lenin monument. The pavement has been laid, the street lamps installed..."
The public greeted their prime minister, as he approached them:
"Kazakhstan!" they cried. "Bashkiria! Petrozavodsk!"
All these people seemed to be brought here from all over the country to spend a few seconds in the prime minister's presence:
"It's great to live with you!" a woman cried to him, adding after a second "Even in Bashkiria."
After that the prime minister walked through the Novgorod Kremlin. He was told the document on joining the Novgorod Republic to the Grand Principality of Moscow to form the Tsardom of Russia was signed there, in the Novgorod Kremlin.
"We will place benches here..." the governor reported, "and here we found an archeological site when we were changing the communication lines... And here is our main monument that unites our religion, our people and our rulers. Ivan the Terrible looking towards Moscow, Peter the Great looking towards St Petersburg. When Valentina Matviyenko came to visit us, we [showed her the monument and] said, "St Petersburg is there!" Here is the pavement we laid..."
"Much money was spent..." said the prime minister who could not stand these desperate attempts to justify the used up regional and federal money any longer, just to be on the safe side.
In the museum the prime minister was told a story about a Novgorod archbishop who came to pray there, entered the far room, opened the prayer book that was lying there and, suddenly, discovered a devil in it! The devil pleaded, "Let me go, Your Grace, do not cross me, for Christ's sake! I will fulfill any wish for you." Then the archbishop demanded that the devil take him to Jerusalem to worship sacred sites, and the devil carried the bishop there and back again.
Vladimir Putin nodded after listening to the story and was going to resume his walk when his mobile phone rang. The prime minister, with the phone in his hand, went into the same very room where the prayer book is still lying and stayed in there about fifteen minutes.
Vladimir Putin also had a video conference with the heads of the largest Russian archaeological expeditions in the Palace of Facets (Granovitaya Palata, Vladychnaya Palata) of the Novgorod Kremlin. He promised to give money to everyone, mostly in support of students engaged in excavation work.
The prime minister promised to talk to the heads of two agricultural firms where Phanagoria, the largest city of the Bosporan Kingdom, is located: the expedition director told the prime minister that the harvesting could start at any time.
The expedition director working at the Suzdal High Plain site (Suzdalskoye Opolye) told the prime minister that the Finno-Ugric peoples came not only to Novgorod, but to the Suzdal High Plain as well, 700 to 800 years earlier than the Slavic peoples. This proves the worrying version about the Varangians' imprint in the history of Russia.
However, even this conference did not give a definite answer to the question as to "whether Rurik ever existed."
At the end of the conference, Putin congratulated the audience on the Day of the Birch Bark, that was commemorated in Novgorod the day before and, judging by the number of people on the city beach, was a non-working day.
Before meeting with archaeologists, Putin visited the excavation site of Vasily Kalika's Chamber (Kalikina Palata) in the Novgorod Kremlin. The work has stopped, as there is no money. The prime minister was told that 5 million roubles were needed to protect the excavated chamber from collapsing and that it was impossible to find this money.
"Five million?" the prime minister sounded hesitant. "We'll find it!"
He could not, of course, understand why it is impossible to find 5 million roubles. It is more difficult to find 5 billion dollars, and even that is not a problem.
"We will find this money and give it to the museum this year," the prime minister said.
A few minutes later a fifty-year-old lady was running through the Kremlin and shouting into the mobile phone:
"Gala, Gala, I need you! Come as fast as you can; we must prepare the application! For what?! We were given five millions!... They won't let you in? Everything is cordoned off? Take the route along the river bank then!"
They seem to have a secret passage from the river to the Kremlin.
Putin went to the Trinity Excavation site (Troitsky Raskop) in the city centre and was talking to the country's archaeology elite in a ten-metre-deep excavation pit.
"How do you manage to find this birch bark?" Putin asked after giving away five million roubles. "I wouldn't find anything," he added.
"Hand work," he was told. "No modernisation can help."
This is not the only problem the archaeologists face. Apart from the traditional lack of money (the prime minister promised to help), the archaeologists are concerned with black-market archaeologists (if the prime minister met with black-market archaeologists, they would complain to him about the "white" ones).
"Seventy percent of the excavation sites in Suzdal have experienced illegal intrusion! Can we talk to you about it now?"
"Of course," Putin said.
"They don't just walk in with sensors; they also pretend to be archaeologists while robbing archaeological sites in off-roaders!"
"Do they want to be legalised?" the prime minister asked.
"They have already, so to say, been legalised," the archaeologists exclaimed.
It turned out it is not difficult to obtain a legal status. It makes it more difficult not to get a legal status. Search for buried treasures is not forbidden in Russian legislation, as distinct from Soviet legislation.
"First they must be identified as illegal," Putin said, tired of sitting ten metres deep in the 10th century. "I will ask the United Russia party in the State Duma to initiate this law. I think they will agree to do it. There is a need for regulation."
And if they refuse?
