Larisa Kozova14:41, 27.08.25

4 min.123

Such sacred places were considered a link between the dead and the living, so they were forbidden to be desecrated.

In temporarily occupied Mariupol, Donetsk region, the Russians destroyed a unique architectural monument – the Did mound, whose “age” dates back to the 5th millennium BC. e. This was reported by the head of the Center for the Study of the Occupation, Petro Andryuschenko, referring to information received from eyewitnesses.

“The Russians destroyed the Did mound in Mariupol. The Did mound dates back to the 5th millennium BC, meaning it is much older than the city and is the same age as the pyramids of Egypt. Mariupol residents report that as a result of the “renovations” they simply turned the mound into a plain. In fact, finishing what the USSR started,” Andryuschenko emphasized.

According to him, on August 31, 2022, the Russians first tried to destroy the Did mound on Pylyp Orlyk Street, which is one of the main historical monuments of Mariupol and Ukraine. Then, due to publicity, the destruction was stopped.

Later, on March 25, 2024, the Russians resumed their destruction operations, but again it was stopped because the occupiers’ plans became known far beyond the borders of Ukraine.

Currently, according to eyewitness reports, the monument has been razed to the ground.

In particular, a local resident reported:

“Instead of creating a unique archaeological park in the open air, attracting tourists there and making money from it, they are rolling everything into asphalt, destroying nature.”

According to Andryuschenko, this is about the destruction of Ukraine’s heritage:

“The only thing the Russians are capable of.”

Kurgan Ded in Mariupol: what you need to know

According to open sources, it was a sprawling hill, until recently it had a height of 6.6 meters, its diameter was 70 meters. The Grandfather Mound is known from ancient maps, and this is how its name is indicated on them.

When the residential areas of Mariupol were pulled west and north, the ancient mound ended up near the high-rise buildings of Pylypa Orlyka Street. The Did Mound dates back to the 5th millennium BC, which means it is much older than the city on the outskirts of which it ended up. In 1993, the mound was damaged during the construction of a highway and a water supply. Then archaeologists and historians were called in, who found three Bronze Age burials. Historians attribute the mound to the so-called Yamna culture.

It was recognized as having scientific and historical interest, because it is a contemporary of the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, but it is a different culture. The Grandfather Mound is an earthen, but architectural structure. It was created from pieces of soil with grass.

The originally created mounds also had a small clearing-terrace for holding funeral ceremonies and future visits to the mound. Near such a clearing there were pits for sacrifices. The mounds were considered places of connection between the dead and the living, it was here that there was a symbolic transition to the “kingdom of shadows”, the “kingdom of the dead”. The mounds were considered sacred places, so it was forbidden to spoil them.

As UNIAN reported, on the night of July 23, 2023, the Russians launched massive missile strikes on the center of Odessa – on the historical center , which is included in the UNESCO list. Many architectural monuments and residential buildings were damaged and destroyed. Among the damaged buildings are the Credit Society building (1881) by the Belgian architect Arthur Luix, a joint project of the Italian Caetano Dallacqua and Alexander Shashin – the Kovalevsky residential building and outbuilding (late 19th century) and the Manuk-Bey mansion (1845-1846).

The 19th-century creations of architect Felix Gonsiorovsky were damaged – the Mas and Mashevsky residential buildings and the Tolstoy apartment building, the Vassal house (second half of the 19th century), the Janusz apartment building (1901) by the Swiss-Italian architect Alexander Bernardazzi, etc. 

(c)UNIAN 2025