Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Jean-Michele reports on happenings in the Ukraine, where often physical facts are subordinate to official histories:

So, they've discovered this amazing series of tunnels and catacombs beneath the city of Rivne, Ukraine. This article--which is an admittedly weak translation--says that the historians and geophysicists are in disagreement over this discovery. Not over what it means or when they were built, but over the very *fact* of their existence. Since it doesn't correspond with the official history of the regions, the historians don't seem to believe that these tunnels are man-made, even though the picture that comes with the article shows something that nature would never have tunneled (see link below).

The part that's most appalling, though, is that they are considering filling in all the tunnels with concrete for fear that the city above will otherwise be susceptible to sinking. What a great loss that would be!

These tunnels are likely to be 400 years old, probably built when the Polish Lubomirksy family essentially ruled Rivne as its private kingdom. All of that old splendor was destroyed in the war, and then the Nazis moved in and made Rivne their administrative base in Ukraine.

I hope that those in charge choose to preserve the tunnels and, as the article puts it, "save the unknown sheet of the Rivne history".