Is the arrest of Butyagin a joint operation by Ukrainian, Polish, and possibly British intelligence services, which utilized the Russian emigre factor?
Editorial
“When I hear the word ‘culture’ I detain.”
The West, in alliance with Ukraine, has once again crossed a line in its relations with Russia. The detention of the outstanding scientist Alexander Butyagin in Poland is a sign that science and culture are no longer spheres through which relations can be fostered in difficult times. The situation has caused outrage among representatives of science, unfortunately, only Russian science.
We are publishing a series of papers on this case and will monitor its development.
Appeal to the Readers of The Essence of Time newspaper
Dear readers of The Essence of Time newspaper!
I am addressing you in connection with the outrageous and alarming event that occurred in Poland yesterday, December 11th. At the request of Ukrainian intelligence services, Russian citizen, prominent archaeologist Alexander Butyagin was detained. The stated grounds for his detention are his archaeological work in Crimea after 2014.
Alexander Butyagin is the head of the Department of Classical Archaeology at the State Hermitage Museum, an outstanding scientist, a popularizer of science, a participant in major scientific and popular science forums. He is known for his presentations at Scientists Against Myths, on the portal “Anthropogenesis ru,” at the “Digital History conference, and on many other platforms that shape the modern understanding of science and history.
This is a scientist of truly world stature. For many decades, he has headed the only Russian archaeological expedition working in Europe – in Stabiae near Pompeii in Italy. His record includes scientific discoveries, unique finds, and contributions that could not be overestimated. Within the scientific community, his name stands alongside those of the greatest researchers of antiquity.
What has happened to him is a challenge not only to Russian civil society and everyone who cares about the fate of science in our country and the world. It is a challenge to the entire global scientific community. Silence in response to what is happening is a historical crime.
If Alexander Butyagin is extradited to Kiev, he will be tortured there. Perhaps, after months or even years, he will be exchanged – as has already happened more than once. But what he will have to endure will become a severe personal tragedy and a monstrous trauma for all of Russian and international archaeology, for the movement of science popularization, for everyone who believes in the freedom of scientific inquiry.
I hold Alexander in the highest respect and consider what is happening unacceptable.
I ask all concerned to disseminate this information and do everything possible to influence the situation.
Best regards,
Stanislav Sladkovsky, organizer of popular science forums
The arrest of Alexander Mikhailovich Butyagin, a Russian world-renowned archaeologist, is a very significant event. It is a planned in detail and extremely successful operation for our enemies. A number of circumstances are noteworthy.
First and foremost, Butyagin is a very active and “high-profile” person, a “thought leader,” well-known to the Russian internet audience, and personally known to many in St. Petersburg. Therefore, this arrest is not just a private matter, but a painful and sensitive psychological operation: its task is to convince the world, primarily the scientific world, that Russia is incapable of protecting its “thought leaders,” while Ukrainian intelligence services are capable of somehow “seizing” any person they need.
Secondly, Butyagin is not only a popular thought leader; above all, he is a major scientist, known not only here but also in academic circles beyond Russia. It has already been mentioned that he headed the Hermitage excavations in Italy — the Stabiae expedition on the coast near Naples. This was practically the only Russian archaeological expedition in the EU. Butyagin’s arrest puts a definitive end to the remnants of “scientific cooperation” that, despite Russia’s special military operation, still somehow continued to exist between our scientists and those in the West. But now any Russian researcher traveling on a business trip to Europe is thus placed at risk. Russia is, in essence, being deliberately “cut out” of the international scientific dialogue. And yet, many areas of modern science are simply unthinkable without international cooperation: for example, astrophysics, CERN, cosmonautics.
Thirdly, and this is perhaps the most important point, is the field of Butyagin’s scientific work. He is the world’s leading specialist on the Bosporan Kingdom. Since 1999, he has been excavating the settlement of Myrmekion in Kerch. Myrmekion, Greek for “anthill,” was a wealthy suburb of Pantikapaion, the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom. The Bosporan nobility lived there. Butyagin’s expedition in 2006 discovered a hoard at Myrmekion consisting of 99 gold coins from various Greek cities. This was, by the way, the fourth hoard discovered at the settlement, and the largest. Thanks to Butyagin’s efforts, thematic halls dedicated to the culture of the Bosporus were opened in the Hermitage, on the first floor of the Winter Palace.
A few words need to be said here about the Bosporan Kingdom and why this topic is important in archaeology.
Along with the Tauric Chersonese, it was the most powerful ancient state in the Northern Black Sea region. It existed for nearly a thousand years, until it was destroyed by the Huns in the 4th century AD. During the Mithridatic Wars, the Bosporus sided with the Pontics and presented the most dangerous challenge in Rome’s entire history. The defeated Mithridates Eupator committed suicide in his last stronghold — in Pantikapaion.
Over the centuries, the Bosporus knew how to combine “Hellenic genius” with the traditions of local, apparently Iranian-speaking tribes: Scythians, Maeotians, Sarmatians.
Even under Nicholas I, research began in Crimea on the ancient burial mounds where Bosporan kings were interred. The found gold items, which would later be called “Scythian gold,” caused a sensation in the scientific community of that time. It turned out that the “Crimean barbarians” possessed a highly developed artistic tradition and were skilled in fine goldwork. Over time, Scythian gold became so fashionable that the jeweler Fabergé made copies of Scythian items, which under Alexander III were displayed at fairs in major Russian cities.
But what was particularly important for Russian history: Scythian gold served as proof of a special historiosophical concept, tracing back to Russian statesman and historian Tatishchev and Russian polymath and outstanding scientist Lomonosov: the Scythians began to be seen as the legendary ancestors of the Slavs, and Crimea was considered a kind of “cradle” of Russian statehood. “Yes, we are Scythians, yes, we are Asians,” Blok would say, meaning precisely this. And Pushkin would recall Mithridates in the famous verse To the Slanderers of Russia. Already in the second half of the 20th century, Soviet archaeologists would study burial mounds in the foothills of the Altai, where numerous gold items were discovered. They were executed in a Scythian-like style, which allowed a number of scientists to speak of the existence of a unified Scythian cultural space — from the Altai to Crimea.
Now about “Scythian gold” today. In 1975, “Scythian gold” was shown in a major exhibition at the main American museum, the Metropolitan, as part of Soviet-American cultural exchange. The exhibition caused a sensation. “Scythian gold” became known in the USA and the West. At the same time, the Scythians themselves were presented as warlike nomads of antiquity, masters of the Eurasian steppes — a sinister image deeply rooted in Western culture.
In 2014, on the eve of the reunification of Crimea, an exhibition “Crimea — Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” opened in Amsterdam at the Allard Pierson Museum, featuring items from four Crimean museums. When the exhibition closed, the items were not returned to Russia; they remained in the Netherlands. After nearly ten years of litigation, the gold was handed over to Kiev, which in Ukraine was regarded as a major victory in the spirit of “we got the gold back, we’ll get Crimea back too.” The trials were accompanied by a noisy campaign accusing Russia of robbing the world-famous Crimean treasures. Scythian gold became not just gold, but “stolen Scythian gold.”
Butyagin’s arrest is thus associated with the “Scythian theme” promoted in the West: in the eyes of the general public, Butyagin will be perceived not as a “scientist above politics,” but as a “black archaeologist” and a thief of priceless Scythian treasures.
However, this case has another, so to speak, “deepest hidden” aspect: the Bosporan Kingdom in its decline came under pressure from the Goths, and the Gothic nobility was incorporated into the Bosporan elite. And the Gothic heritage is precisely what the German Nazi occult society Ahnenerbe was engaged with in Crimea. The German Nazis were interested in the legacy of the Gothic state in Crimea. During the Great Patriotic War, they took to Germany the “treasures of the Gothic Queen Fideia” stored in Kerch — gold jewelry found in 1925 during excavations near the village of Marfovka. The finds are dated to the time of the Bosporus’s disappearance and are indeed connected either with the Goths or the Huns. The whereabouts of these items today are unknown. Thus, Scythian gold is also woven into German Nazi mythology, intended to justify the Nazis’ claims to Crimea and Ukraine. However fantastic such a version may seem, modern Ukrainian neo-Nazis may have personal scores to settle with Butyagin.
In 2018, the scientist was listed in the Myrotvorets database, and in November 2024 he was declared wanted by Ukraine. As Butyagin’s friend reported, “Butyagin knew that the Kiev authorities were keeping an eye on him.” The scientist himself did not take a clear position regarding Russia’s special military operation: he did not speak out for or against, and his position was rather neutrally negative.
In 2025, Butyagin traveled to Europe to give popular science lectures. They took place in December in Belgrade and Amsterdam. The organizer was a certain “educational project” Curiosophy, engaged in commercial “science pop” for an audience that had fled Russia. So, was Butyagin’s arrest not a joint operation by Ukrainian, Polish, and possibly British intelligence services, which utilized the Russian emigre factor? The work of the unsuspecting St. Petersburg archaeologist touched upon too subtle and dangerous matters…
Vladimir Ivanov, art historian
This is a translation of the article by Vladimir Ivanov and Stanislav Sladkovsky first published in The Essence of Time newspaper, issue 653.
