Derbent: historic buildings are demolished before city's jubilee

The buildings of the ancient mill and the hotel "Volna" have been unreasonably destroyed in Derbent at the background of preparing the city to celebrate its 2000^th anniversary, said Professor Murtazali Gadjiev and journalist Svetlana Anokhina.

Murtazali Gadjiev, the head of the Derbent archaeological expedition of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Dagestani Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the old mill building was a valuable cultural monument, and had a beautiful and original façade.

The demolition of the ancient mill is not the first example of such attitude to the cultural heritage of Derbent, said the scientist. He noted that a little earlier the building of the hotel "Volna" was demolished. The building itself, built in Soviet time, had no historical value, but under it, according to archaeologists, there were potteries and an antique ceramic oven.

The demolished building of the mill could have been used as an exhibition hall or arts centre, like the Moscow project "Vinzavod" (Winery), said Svetlana Anokhina, one of the authors of the project "There Was Such a City". According to her story, it looks like the bosses from the organizing committee in charge of marking the 2000^th anniversary of Derbent just need to "consume the allocated money" and not to properly prepare the feast.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.