On March 13, a public lecture was held at the State Darwin Museum by a forensic expert, chief specialist of the Bureau of Forensic Medicine of the Moscow Department of Health Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin“Forensic medicine and history of Russia. Reconstruction of the head from the skull: further development of the method.” The lecture was held as part of the exhibition “Take a Look at My Face”, dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the anthropologist Galina Vyacheslavovna Lebedinskaya.
The first attempts to recreate the appearance of a person from his skull began in the second half of the 19th century in Germany. They were caused by interest in the finds of the remains of Stone Age people and earlier human ancestors, of which quite a few had already accumulated by that time. As a result, there was a desire to see what our ancestors looked like. One of the first reconstruction experiments belongs to the German anthropologist Hermann Schaaffhausen (1816-1893), who examined the first Neanderthal remains known to science. The following attempts were carried out by anatomist and zoologist Julius Kollmann (1834-1918) and a number of other researchers. Since the scientific method had not yet been developed, the reconstructions turned out to be largely intuitive. When trying to check the accuracy of the reconstruction, it turned out that two authors created dissimilar portraits from the same skull. All this somewhat disappointed scientists in the prospects of such a reconstruction, so work was interrupted for some time.
The development of a scientific method that allows one to achieve results that would withstand the test of accuracy belongs to Mikhail Mikhailovich Gerasimov (1907-1970). He was able to establish relationships connecting the structure of the skull bones with the soft tissues located on top. To do this, Mikhail Gerasimov conducted large-scale research in morgues, determining such dependencies, and then made control experiments, restoring the appearance of the skulls and comparing the results with photographs. Academician Boris Rauschenbach, who was closely acquainted with Mikhail Gerasimov, in his memoirs about him described how, to test Gerasimov’s method, he was given for reconstruction, for example, a Papuan skull brought to Russia by Miklouho-Maclay. Whose skull, of course, was not reported, but the resulting sculptural portrait had characteristic Papuan features.
Mikhail Gerasimov is responsible for reconstructing the external appearance of a number of hominids: Australopithecus, Heidelberg man, Neandelthal man. He established what people from the Paleolithic sites of Sungir looked like. He also created portraits of many historical figures: Ivan the Terrible, Yaroslav the Wise, Tamerlane, Ulugbek, Andrei Bogolyubsky.
The laboratory of plastic reconstruction, created by Mikhail Gerasimov, still operates today. It was done by her employees. Also, Gerasimov's students continued to improve the technique. For example, Galina Vyacheslavovna Lebedinskaya, in her PhD thesis, created a method for reconstructing the profile of the nose - a very difficult part of the head to restore. To identify patterns connecting the structure of facial bones and nasal cartilage, she analyzed thousands of X-rays. The pictures were taken in soft rays, allowing us to record not only the bones, but also the appearance of the soft tissues.
In general, the method of reconstructing the head from the skull developed mainly in the field of archeology, where it made it possible to see the faces of people of past eras, and paleontology, in which it was used to recreate the appearance of hominids. Although in a number of cases investigative authorities turned to Mikhail Gerasimov for help, full recognition of this method in forensic science came somewhat later. In 1983, reconstruction of the head based on the skull was included in the official list of examinations performed by domestic forensic experts. Investigators were given the opportunity to order such an examination.
Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin, who mastered the method of skull reconstruction under the guidance of Galina Vyacheslavovna Lebedinskaya, has been in the field of forensic medicine for many years. It must be said that in forensic science, the technique of reconstructing a face is constantly tested for accuracy. After all, the portrait created by an expert is presented for identification among several other portraits of people of the same gender and similar age. And such reconstruction checks are successfully completed.
But, working in the forensic medical examination bureau, Sergei Nikitin more than once helped not only criminologists, but also historians. He managed to talk about only a few interesting cases of such work in his lecture.
In the second half of the 1980s, he worked at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, where he reconstructed the appearance of several saints of the 11th - 12th centuries who rest in the Near Caves of the monastery. Among them were Saint Agapit, considered the first doctor in Kievan Rus, the first abbot of the Lavra, Varlaam (it was discovered that he had a lifetime injury - a scar on the skull from a blow with a sword or an ax). Restoring the appearance of the chronicler Nestor, Sergei Nikitin determined from the asymmetry in the development of bones that Nestor was right-handed, and in addition to the sculptural portrait, he also performed a reconstruction of his right hand. He also created a portrait of Ilya of Pechersk, known as Ilya Muromets. Judging by the signs of injuries, such as broken collarbones, this man actually participated in battles.
Pilot V. Ya. Kosorukov. Reconstruction by S. A. Nikitin
An interesting case occurred in 1986, when Sergei Nikitin made a portrait based on the skull of a pilot who died in 1941 near Moscow. The downed plane fell into a swamp in the vicinity of the village of Ilyatino. The search party found the remains of the pilot only in 1985. The portrait made by Nikitin was shown on television, and this man was identified. He turned out to be junior lieutenant Vasily Yakovlevich Kosorukov. Now the deceased pilot is buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.
This was not the only time Sergei Nikitin worked on remains from World War II. For example, he contributed to a Japanese organization searching for the graves of Japanese prisoners of war in order to rebury them in their homeland. Since the prisoner of war camps in the Soviet Union were mixed, there were Germans, Romanians, Hungarians, and Italians in them, it is impossible to determine where the Japanese are among the graves of those who died in captivity without resorting to anthropological reconstruction.
Sergei Nikitin also had the opportunity to work with the remains of Adolf Hitler’s skull, which are stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. In this case, the goal was not to recreate the portrait, but to identify the bones stored in the archive with a photograph taken in 1946 when Hitler's remains were discovered. Identity confirmed. During this examination, a bullet exit hole was discovered on Hitler's parietal bone.
In the early 1990s, there was perhaps the most famous reconstruction performed by Sergei Nikitin. He worked with the remains of the family of Nicholas II discovered near Yekaterinburg. Sergei Nikitin painted portraits of Nikolai, Alexandra Fedorovna, their daughters Olga, Tatyana, Anastasia, as well as the doctor E. Botkin, the maid A. Demidova and the valet A. Trupp, who were executed along with the royal family. On Nicholas's skull there were traces of an old wound, which he received in 1891, when, while still heir to the throne, he visited Japan. The assassin, a Japanese policeman standing in a cordon, managed to strike Nikolai on the head twice with a saber. Sergei Nikitin was able to establish the exact location of the wounds for comparison with the marks on the skull thanks to descriptions made by doctors in 1891, as well as thanks to the hat stored in the Hermitage, which Nikolai was wearing at the time of the assassination attempt.
Sophia Paleolog. Sculptural reconstruction of S. A. Nikitin
Sergei Nikitin also had the opportunity to work with the remains of the Grand Duchesses, who rest in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Traditionally, another Kremlin monastery, Voznesensky, served as the burial vault for the wives and daughters of Moscow princes. But this monastery was blown up in 1929. Restorer Nikolai Pomerantsev then managed to organize the transfer of the tombs to the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral. In the 1990s, during the restoration of the tombs, the tombs were examined, and Sergei Nikitin was able to make portraits of a number of women who left their mark on Russian history. This is Sophia Paleolog, Elena Glinskaya, the wife of Dmitry Donskoy Evdokia, Irina Godunova - the sister of Boris Godunov and the wife of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, the third wife of Ivan the Terrible Marfa Sobakina, the first mother-in-law of Ivan the Terrible Ulyana Fedorovna (in monasticism Anastasia), the niece of Ivan the Terrible Maria Staritskaya, mother Dmitry Shemyaka Anastasia Zvenigorodskaya.
It happened that Sergei Nikitin worked not within the walls of the laboratory, but in the conditions of the Far North. This happened, for example, when the grave of travelers Vasily and Tatyana Pronchishchev was studied in the village of Ust-Olenyok. Lieutenant Vasily Pronchishchev explored the coasts of the Laptev Sea on the ship "Yakutsk" in 1735-1736. He died on August 29, and 14 days later Tatyana, who was traveling with her husband, also died. The remaining crew members, led by Semyon Chelyuskin, buried the couple on the shore near the mouth of the Olenyok River.
Another case of work in the Arctic also occurred in the Laptev Sea, on Kotelny Island. There is the grave of Herman Walter, who died in 1902, a doctor from the expedition of Eduard Tol, who was looking for the legendary Sannikov Land. Due to the effects of permafrost, the grave collapsed, so it was necessary to rebury Hermann Walter. But during the reburial process, the skull of the deceased was identified with Walter’s lifetime photograph. This is the first time such an identification has been made in the field.
Another identification experience is associated with the search for the grave of White Army General Vladimir Kappel. He died near Nizhneudinsk, but due to fears that Kappel’s grave would be destroyed by the advancing Reds, he was buried only in Harbin, China, near the Iveron Church. In the 1950s, the tombstone was destroyed and the grave became lost. It was possible to find her thanks to photographs taken in 1946, and they were able to finally confirm the identity of the buried person with the help of forensic medical examination. Now Vladimir Kappel is buried in Moscow, in the Donskoy Monastery.
Sergei Nikitin also spoke about a number of methods he developed to improve the reconstruction of the appearance of the skull. This is, for example, determining the degree of protrusion of the eyeball, the position of the corners of the eyes, adapting a computer program for a comparative study of the skull and intravital photography. As a result of this program, a study that previously took about 10 hours is completed in 10 minutes.
Natalya DAVYDOVA
Since 1993, a large group of researchers has been purposefully and in detail studying the female necropolis of the Moscow Kremlin. As a result, a museum of “Kremlin wives” will appear in the annex of the Archangel Cathedral (about what interesting things scientists have discovered and what they will show us in the new museum, "News" wrote on August 11). The most unusual part of the project was the anthropological reconstruction (reconstruction from the skull) of sculptural portraits of famous women of the Kremlin past. This is done by Sergei Nikitin, the chief specialist of the Moscow Bureau of Forensic Medicine.
Forensic expert Sergei Nikitin spoke about why he took on the task of reconstructing the appearance of historical characters in an interview with a columnist. "Izvestia" Natalya Davydova.
question: How did you decide to start studying the necropolis? They themselves once said that it is not human to open graves and disturb the dead.
answer: It was not for nothing that we wanted to open the tombs, look inside and rummage through the bones. God forbid. It was simply planned to reconstruct the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral and restore the sarcophagi of the royal wives that had been there since 1929. It is impossible to restore a stone sarcophagus with the remains buried in it. They had to be obtained and an inventory made. Now the opportunity has arisen to study the remains and recreate the appearance of famous women. There are no portraits of these historical figures left, in fact nothing except mentions in the chronicles. And here is a unique opportunity to see faces. Isn't this interesting? But when the research ends, we will return everything to the sarcophagi, and no one will touch them again. By the way, the Egyptians also opened ancient burials and even put their pharaohs on public display. True, it is difficult to imagine the appearance of a shrunken mummy; there is practically no face there, only a skull covered with skin. There remain fairly conventional images of the pharaohs - by the way, it would be interesting to compare how well they correspond to the skull. Today this is quite possible: you can do a tomography, using it - a plastic copy of the skull (both a mummy and a living person) and reconstruct a portrait from the skull.
V: Those working in the Kremlin tell in whispers that when it was opened, the burial of Anastasia Romanovna, the first wife of Ivan IV the Terrible and the first Russian Tsarina, turned out to have “two heads.” It sounds ominous.
O: But it could be so. Apparently, the second skull ended up there in 1929, when the Bolsheviks decided to demolish the Ascension Convent. Workers of the Kremlin Museums managed to save its royal women's necropolis: they described and transferred heavy stone tombs with the remains of famous women to the Archangel Cathedral. Some sarcophagi, for example, those of Grand Duchess Evdokia, wife of Dmitry Donskoy, fell apart when they were dug up. As it turned out during our research, the second skull belonged to Evdokia. Apparently, in 1929 he was placed in the nearest intact sarcophagus, which turned out to be the sarcophagus of Queen Anastasia. There was a lot of turmoil, rush work, everything was done by hand. In general, a monument to the employees of the Kremlin Museums should be erected for this scientific, cultural and human feat.
V: Why did you manage to make a sculptural portrait of Evdokia, the founder of the Ascension Monastery and the first to be buried in its necropolis in 1407, but not Anastasia Romanovna, who died in 1560?
O: All that was left of Queen Anastasia’s skull was a pile of ashes and a braid. Based on its surviving remains, we could only determine its age - 25-30 years, and it turned out to be unsuitable for restoring its external appearance. But it happens that losses, if they are not so significant, do not interfere with reconstruction. You see, the amazing plasticity and organic nature of the skull make it possible to restore many of its missing parts. Thus, in particular, it was possible to restore the skulls of Emperor Nicholas II, his daughters, and the Emperor’s valet Aloysius Trupp, whose remains were discovered near Yekaterinburg. Now I am finishing a monograph summarizing my more than 30 years of observations. It will be applied. I myself am a practitioner and understand that this work will be in demand by forensic experts and anthropologists.
V: It was not possible to restore the portrait of Ivan the Terrible’s second wife, Kabardian Maria Temryukovna?
O: Yes, and this is also a great pity. But the front part of the skull of his third wife, Marfa Sobakina, is perfectly preserved.
V: Probably, when they created her portrait, they always kept in mind that this was, in fact, the winner of one of the first beauty contests in Rus', held by royal decree.
O: She truly was amazingly beautiful. But before the wedding she began to get sick, and two weeks after the wedding she died, without actually becoming a wife - this was the fate that awaited the young beauty, and this is recorded in church documents. Since we have a forensic service, we decided to determine the cause of her death. Kremlin history is especially interesting in this sense. Before Marfa, Ivan the Terrible’s first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, was poisoned with mercury salts; during research, this was absolutely proven. The remains of Marfa Sobakina were also tested for the presence of metal poisons. True, the analysis showed nothing. Perhaps a plant poison that could not be tested chemically was used, or perhaps her husband did something to her.
V: Did you spend a long time working on the portrait of Martha?
O: From May 2002 to December 2003, about a year and a half. In such matters, haste is inappropriate. And then - this is not my main job. In fact, I do historical reconstruction in my free time - after 6-8 pm and until two in the morning. I think over every feature of the face being recreated.
V: What does it mean to work on your face?
O: To make the portrait come out alive. Here it is necessary to separate the forensic, scientific and anthropological part of the reconstruction and the other stage - work on the image. This takes longer than the actual recovery itself.
V: You even have a term - “animating” a portrait. And how does “animation” happen?
O: You need to pump half of the blood out of yourself and introduce it into the restored portrait. I have to feel the skull - its eye sockets, its contours. Understand, for example, how to open your eyes slightly. I can sit across from you for two weeks and look at this image, which is not yet animated. And therefore suddenly understand what and how to do for a person to “come to life.” It’s easier for sculptors; they sculpt from life. And my “nature” is a skull with empty eye sockets.
V: Which portrait is more difficult to reconstruct - a woman’s or a man’s?
O: I think it's female. Even our teacher Mikhail Mikhailovich Gerasimov turned out portraits of men much better than women. Female beauty is more difficult to reproduce than male roughness.
V: Judging by the reconstructed appearance of Sophia Paleologue, the overseas wife of Grand Duke Ivan III, who experienced a lot of tragic events in her youth, was a very strong and strong-willed woman. Am I right that in your sculptural portrait she has a visible mustache?
O: Right. And this is not fiction. When I began to examine the skull of Sophia Paleolog, I discovered growths on the inside of the frontal bone - the so-called internal frontal hyperostosis. In other words, this is an indicator of hormonal disorders, which, by the way, manifest themselves not only in the “masculinization” of the face. With age, Sophia Paleologue should have noticeably gained weight. But I didn’t depict her like that, I modeled her closer to the skull. It’s simply amazing how this little woman (her height is about 160 cm) with major hormonal problems gave birth to 12 children.V: Is it true that in the near future you are going to “revive” Natalya Kirillovna, the mother of Peter I?
O: Yes. Many people, including myself, will be interested to see what she looked like and to understand what Peter inherited from his mother. Her skull is perfectly preserved. It is realistic to reconstruct both the portrait of Ivan the Terrible’s last wife, Maria Nagaya, and the portrait of his first mother-in-law (mother Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yuryeva). I call her the first mother-in-law in Rus'. She was tonsured at the Ascension Monastery and went there after the death of her daughter. This is an elderly woman, over 70 years old, I have never done such portraits in this project.
V: Experts say that the Russian Museum seems to have preserved parsuns (as early secular portraits were called in Rus') with images of Natalya Kirillovna. Are you going to take a look at them?
O: I’ll finish the reconstruction, and if they really have survived, we’ll compare them.
Izvestia Help
Sergey Nikitin is an expert in the medical and forensic department of the Bureau of Forensic Medicine in Moscow. Chief specialist in anthropological reconstruction - restoration of a person's appearance from bone remains. Graduated from the Moscow Medical Institute. Pirogov, began to study anthropological reconstruction in 1972 in the laboratory of Mikhail Gerasimov. He restored portraits of the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery - the chronicler Nestor, the hero Ilya of Murom, the healer Agapit - and the first abbot of this monastery, Varlaam. In the 1990s, he took part in the “royal” examination - the identification of the remains of Emperor Nicholas II, members of his family and associates. With his help, it was possible to identify the remains of Nicholas II and his daughter Anastasia. As part of the “Kremlin” project, he restored portraits of Sofia Paleolog, Elena Glinskaya, Evdokia Donskaya, Irina Godunova, Marfa Sobakina and Masha Staritskaya, daughter of Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, niece of Ivan the Terrible, who died along with her parents in 1569 (the whole family was poisoned by order of Ivan Grozny). In 2000, at an international competition of specialists in the field of anthropological reconstruction in the USA, he performed a control restoration of a portrait based on the skull with the best result.
What were the first beauties of Rus'
By studying folklore and ancient literature, one can draw conclusions about the male tastes of former times in relation to women. The standard of female beauty in Rus' was changing. In the early Middle Ages, the main beauties were considered plump, strong girls with a magnificent bust and wide hips - a clear relic of primitive aesthetics. But already in pre-Petrine Russia, the image of a domestic beauty became different.
The preferred figure was no longer plump, but stately, certainly tall, with a white face with a bright blush and high “sable” eyebrows. Even the styles and details of women's clothing were subordinated to the visual creation of a majestic and static image. By the way, inactivity was an important advantage of Russian women of the previous era. Fidgety laughers were not welcomed by society.
Kremlin men were restored by Mikhail Gerasimov
Sergei Nikitin is not the first who has had the opportunity to restore portraits of Kremlin celestials. 43 years ago, Mikhail Gerasimov (1907-1970) worked in the Kremlin - a famous archaeologist, anthropologist, sculptor, founder of the Russian school of anthropological reconstruction, who created sculptural portraits-reconstructions of primitive people and a number of historical figures, including Yaroslav the Wise and Timur (Tamerlane).
In 1963, Gerasimov studied burials in the Archangel Cathedral. At that time, the cathedral was undergoing another restoration, work was going on below floor level, and a decision was made to open and study a number of remains. Gerasimov then made three portraits, including Ivan the Terrible, being the first to establish for certain what he looked like (the portraits are kept today in the Museum of the History of Moscow). True, the level of science was different then, and little material about those works has been preserved - no comparison with the current project of studying the female necropolis, when all the latest methods are used.
On the radio "Echo of Moscow" I heard a fascinating conversation with the head of the archaeological department of the Kremlin Museums, Tatyana Dmitrievna Panova, and expert anthropologist Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin. They spoke in detail about their latest works. Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin very competently described Zoya (Sophia) Fominichna Palaeologus, who arrived in Moscow on November 12, 1473 from Rome from the most prominent Orthodox authority and then a cardinal under Pope Vissarion of Nicaea to marry the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan Vasilyevich the Third. About Zoya (Sofya) Paleologus as a bearer of the exploded Western European subjectivity and about her role in the history of Russia, see my previous notes. Interesting new details.
Doctor of Historical Sciences Tatyana Dmitrievna admits that on her first visit to the Kremlin Museum she experienced a strong shock from the image of Sophia Paleologus reconstructed from the skull. She could not move away from the appearance that struck her. Something in Sofia’s face attracted her - interestingness and harshness, a certain zest.
On September 18, 2004, Tatyana Panova spoke about research in the Kremlin necropolis. “We open every sarcophagus, remove the remains and remains of funeral clothes. I must say that, for example, we have anthropologists working for us, of course, they make a lot of interesting observations on the remains of these women, since the physical appearance of people of the Middle Ages is also interesting, we, in general, , we don’t know much about him, and what diseases people suffered from back then. But in general, there are a lot of interesting questions. But in particular, one of the interesting areas is the reconstruction of portraits of sculpted people of that time from the skulls. But you know, we have a secular one. painting appears very late, only at the end of the 17th century, and here we have already reconstructed 5 portraits today. We can see the faces of Evdokia Donskaya, Sofia Paleolog - the second wife of Ivan III, Elena Glinskaya - the mother of Ivan the Terrible, Sofia Paleolog - Ivan's grandmother. Ivan the Terrible, and Elena Glinskaya is his mother. Then now we have a portrait of Irina Godunova, for example, it was also possible because the skull was preserved. And the last work is the third wife of Ivan the Terrible - Marfa Sobakina. Still a very young woman" (http://echo.msk.ru/programs/kremlin/27010/).
Then, as now, there was a turning point - Russia had to respond to the challenge of subjectization, or to the challenge of breakthrough capitalism. The heresy of the Judaizers could well have prevailed. The struggle at the top flared up in earnest and, as in the West, took the form of a struggle for succession to the throne, for the victory of one party or another.
So, Elena Glinskaya died at the age of 30 and, as it turned out from studies of her hair, a spectral analysis was carried out - she was poisoned with mercury salts. The same thing - the first wife of Ivan the Terrible, Anastasia Romanova, also turned out to have a huge amount of mercury salts.
Since Sophia Paleologus was a student of Greek and Renaissance culture, she gave Rus' a powerful impulse for subjectivity. The biography of Zoya (she was nicknamed Sophia in Rus') Paleolog managed to recreate by collecting information bit by bit. But even today even the exact date of her birth is unknown (somewhere between 1443 and 1449). She is the daughter of the Morean despot Thomas, whose possessions occupied the southwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula, where Sparta once flourished, and in the first half of the 15th century in Mystras, under the auspices of the famous herald of the Right Faith, Gemist Plethon, there was a spiritual center of Orthodoxy. Zoya Fominichna was the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, who died in 1453 on the walls of Constantinople while defending the city from the Turks. She grew up, figuratively speaking, in the hands of Gemist Pleton and his faithful disciple Vissarion of Nicaea.
Morea also fell under the blows of the Sultan's army, and Thomas moved first to the island of Corfu, then to Rome, where he soon died. Here, at the court of the head of the Catholic Church, where Vissarion of Nicea firmly established himself after the Union of Florence in 1438, Thomas’s children, Zoe and her two brothers, Andreas and Manuel, were raised.
The fate of the representatives of the once powerful Palaiologan dynasty was tragic. Manuel, who converted to Islam, died in poverty in Constantinople. Andreas, who dreamed of returning the family's former possessions, never achieved his goal. Zoe's elder sister, Elena, the Serbian queen, deprived of the throne by the Turkish conquerors, ended her days in one of the Greek monasteries. Against this background, the fate of Zoe Paleologue looks prosperous.
The strategically-minded Vissarion of Nicaea, who plays a leading role in the Vatican, after the fall of the Second Rome (Constantinople), turned his attention to the northern stronghold of Orthodoxy, to Muscovite Rus', which, although it was under the Tatar yoke, was clearly gaining strength and could soon emerge as a new world power . And he led a complex intrigue to marry the heiress of the Byzantine emperors Palaiologos to the widowed Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III shortly before (in 1467). Negotiations dragged on for three years due to the resistance of the Moscow Metropolitan, but the will of the prince prevailed, and on June 24, 1472, Zoe Palaeologus’s large convoy left Rome.
The Greek princess crossed all of Europe: from Italy to northern Germany, to Lubeck, where the cortege arrived on September 1. Further navigation in the Baltic Sea turned out to be difficult and lasted 11 days. From Kolyvan (as Tallinn was then called in Russian sources) in October 1472, the procession headed through Yuryev (now Tartu), Pskov and Novgorod to Moscow. Such a long journey had to be made due to bad relations with the Kingdom of Poland - the convenient land road to Rus' was closed.
Only on November 12, 1472 did Sophia enter Moscow, where on the same day her meeting and wedding with Ivan III took place. Thus began the “Russian” period in her life.
She brought with her devoted Greek assistants, including Kerbush, from whom the Kashkin princes came. She also brought a number of Italian things. We also got embroideries from her that set the pattern for future “Kremlin wives.” Having become the mistress of the Kremlin, she tried to largely copy the images and customs of her native Italy, which was experiencing a monstrously powerful explosion of subjectivity in those years.
Vissarion of Nicea had previously sent a portrait of Zoe Paleologus to Moscow, which impressed the Moscow elite as a bomb exploding. After all, a secular portrait, like a still life, is a symptom of subjectivity. In those years, every second family in the same most advanced “capital of the world” Florence had portraits of their owners, and in Rus' they were closer to subjectivity in the “Judaizing” Novgorod than in the more mossy Moscow. The appearance of a painting in Rus', unfamiliar with secular art, shocked people. From the Sofia Chronicle we know that the chronicler, who first encountered such a phenomenon, was unable to renounce church tradition and called the portrait an icon: “...and the princess was written on the icon.” The fate of the painting is unknown. Most likely, she died in one of the many fires in the Kremlin. No images of Sophia have survived in Rome, although the Greek woman spent about ten years at the papal court. So we will probably never know what she was like in her youth.
Tatyana Panova in the article “Personification of the Middle Ages” http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/publishing/vs/column/?item_id=2556 notes that secular painting appeared in Rus' only at the end of the 17th century - before that it was under strict church ban. That's why we don't know what famous characters from our past looked like. “Now, thanks to the work of specialists from the Moscow Kremlin Museum-Reserve and forensic experts, we have the opportunity to see the appearance of three legendary female grand duchesses: Evdokia Dmitrievna, Sofia Paleolog and Elena Glinskaya. And reveal the secrets of their lives and deaths.”
The wife of the Florentine ruler Lorenzo Medici, Clarissa Orsini, found the young Zoe Paleologue very pleasant: “Short in stature, the oriental flame sparkled in her eyes, the whiteness of her skin spoke of the nobility of her family.” A face with a mustache. Height 160. Full. Ivan Vasilyevich fell in love at first sight and went with her to the marriage bed (after the wedding) on the same day, November 12, 1473, when Zoya arrived in Moscow.
The arrival of a foreign woman was a significant event for Muscovites. The chronicler noted in the bride's retinue “blue” and “black” people - Arabs and Africans, never before seen in Russia. Sophia became a participant in a complex dynastic struggle for the succession to the Russian throne. As a result, her eldest son Vasily (1479-1533) became the Grand Duke, bypassing the legal heir Ivan, whose early death allegedly from gout remains a mystery to this day. Having lived in Russia for more than 30 years, giving birth to 12 children to her husband, Sofia Paleolog left an indelible mark on the history of our country. Her grandson Ivan the Terrible resembled her in many ways. Anthropologists and forensic experts helped historians find out details about this man that are not in written sources. It is now known that the Grand Duchess was small in stature - no more than 160 cm, suffered from osteochondrosis and had serious hormonal disorders, which caused her masculine appearance and behavior. Her death occurred from natural causes at the age of 55-60 years (the range of numbers is due to the fact that the exact year of her birth is unknown). But perhaps the most interesting was the work on recreating Sophia’s appearance, since her skull was well preserved. The method of reconstructing a sculptural portrait of a person has long been actively used in forensic investigative practice, and the accuracy of its results has been proven many times.
“I,” says Tatyana Panova, “was lucky enough to see the stages of recreating Sophia’s appearance, not yet knowing all the circumstances of her difficult fate. As this woman’s facial features appeared, it became clear how much life situations and illnesses hardened the character of the Grand Duchess. Otherwise and it could not have been - the struggle for her own survival and the fate of her son could not but leave traces. Sophia ensured that her eldest son became Grand Duke Vasily III. The death of the legal heir, Ivan the Young, at the age of 32 from gout is still in doubt. By the way, the Italian Leon, invited by Sophia, took care of the prince’s health and inherited from his mother not only his appearance, which was captured on one of the 16th-century icons - a unique case (the icon can be seen in the exhibition of the State Historical Museum), but also his tough character. Greek blood also showed in Ivan IV the Terrible - he is very similar to his royal grandmother with a Mediterranean type of face. This is clearly visible when you look at the sculptural portrait of his mother, Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya."
As the forensic expert of the Moscow Bureau of Forensic Medicine S.A. Nikitin and T.D. Panova write in the article “Anthropological reconstruction” (http://bio.1september.ru/article.php?ID=200301806), the creation in mid-20th century Russian school of anthropological reconstruction and the work of its founder M.M. Gerasimov performed a miracle. Today we can peer into the faces of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky and Timur, Tsar Ivan IV and his son Fedor. To date, historical figures have been reconstructed: the researcher of the Far North N.A. Begichev, Nestor the Chronicler, the first Russian doctor Agapit, the first abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Varlaam, Archimandrite Polycarp, Ilya Muromets, Sophia Paleolog and Elena Glinskaya (grandmother and mother of Ivan the Terrible, respectively), Evdokia Donskaya (wife of Dmitry Donskoy), Irina Godunova (wife of Fyodor Ioanovich). A facial reconstruction carried out in 1986 from the skull of a pilot who died in 1941 in the battles for Moscow made it possible to establish his name. Portraits of Vasily and Tatyana Pronchishchev, participants of the Great Northern Expedition, have been restored. Developed by the school of M.M. Gerasimov’s methods of anthropological reconstruction are successfully used in solving criminal crimes.
And research into the remains of the Greek princess Sophia Paleologus began in December 1994. She was buried in a massive white stone sarcophagus in the tomb of the Ascension Cathedral in the Kremlin next to the grave of Maria Borisovna, the first wife of Ivan III. “Sophia” is scratched on the lid of the sarcophagus with a sharp instrument.
Necropolis of the Ascension Monastery on the territory of the Kremlin, where in the 15th–17th centuries. Russian Greats and appanage princesses and queens were buried; after the destruction of the monastery in 1929, it was rescued by museum workers. Nowadays the ashes of high-ranking persons rest in the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral. Time is merciless, and not all burials have reached us in full, but the remains of Sophia Paleologus are well preserved (almost a complete skeleton with the exception of some small bones).
Modern osteologists can determine a lot by studying ancient burials - not only the gender, age and height of people, but also the diseases they suffered during their lives and injuries. After comparing the skull, spine, sacrum, pelvic bones and lower extremities, taking into account the approximate thickness of the missing soft tissues and interosseous cartilage, it was possible to reconstruct Sophia’s appearance. Based on the degree of healing of the sutures of the skull and wear of the teeth, the biological age of the Grand Duchess was determined to be 50–60 years, which corresponds to historical data. First, her sculptural portrait was sculpted from special soft plasticine, and then a plaster cast was made and tinted to resemble Carrara marble.
Looking into Sophia’s face, you are convinced: such a woman could really be an active participant in the events evidenced by written sources. Unfortunately, in modern historical literature there is no detailed biographical sketch dedicated to her fate.
Under the influence of Sophia Paleologue and her Greek-Italian entourage, Russian-Italian ties are intensifying. Grand Duke Ivan III invites qualified architects, doctors, jewelers, coiners and weapons manufacturers to Moscow. By decision of Ivan III, foreign architects were entrusted with the reconstruction of the Kremlin, and today we admire the monuments whose appearance in the capital is due to Aristotle Fiorovanti and Marco Ruffo, Aleviz Fryazin and Antonio Solari. Amazingly, many buildings of the late 15th – early 16th centuries. in the ancient center of Moscow have been preserved the same as they were during the life of Sophia Paleolog. These are the Kremlin temples (the Assumption and Annunciation Cathedrals, the Church of the Deposition of the Robe), the Chamber of Facets - the state hall of the Grand Duke's court, the walls and towers of the fortress itself.
The strength and independence of Sofia Paleologus were especially clearly manifested in the last decade of the Grand Duchess’s life, when in the 80s. XV century In a dynastic dispute at the court of the Moscow sovereign, two groups of feudal nobility emerged. The leader of one was the heir to the throne, Prince Ivan the Young, the son of Ivan III from his first marriage. The second was formed surrounded by “Greeks”. Around Elena Voloshanka, the wife of Ivan the Young, a powerful and influential group of “Judaizers” formed, which almost pulled Ivan III to their side. Only the fall of Dmitry (the grandson of Ivan III from his first marriage) and his mother Elena (in 1502 they were sent to prison, where they died) put an end to this protracted conflict.
The sculptural portrait-reconstruction resurrects Sophia’s appearance in the last years of her life. And today there is an amazing opportunity to compare the appearance of Sophia Paleolog and her grandson, Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, whose sculptural portrait was recreated by M.M. Gerasimov back in the mid-1960s. It is clearly visible: the oval of the face, forehead and nose, eyes and chin of Ivan IV are almost the same as those of his grandmother. Studying the skull of the formidable king, M.M. Gerasimov identified significant features of the Mediterranean type in it and unambiguously connected this with the origin of Sophia Paleologus.
In the arsenal of the Russian school of anthropological reconstruction there are different methods: plastic, graphic, computer and combined. But the main thing in them is the search and proof of patterns in the shape, size and position of one or another detail of the face. When recreating a portrait, various techniques are used. These are also the developments of M.M. Gerasimov on the construction of eyelids, lips, wings of the nose and the technique of G.V. Lebedinskaya, concerning the reproduction of the profile drawing of the nose. The technique of modeling the general cover of soft tissues using calibrated thick ridges makes it possible to reproduce the cover more accurately and noticeably faster.
Based on the method developed by Sergei Nikitin for comparing the appearance of facial details and the underlying part of the skull, specialists from the Forensic Expert Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation created a combined graphical method. The pattern of the position of the upper limit of hair growth has been established, and a certain connection between the position of the auricle and the degree of severity of the “supramastoid ridge” has been identified. In recent years, a method for determining the position of the eyeballs has been developed. Signs have been identified that allow us to determine the presence and severity of epicanthus (Mongoloid fold of the upper eyelid).
Armed with advanced techniques, Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin and Tatyana Dmitrievna Panova identified a number of nuances in the fate of Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya and the great-granddaughter of Sofia Paleolog - Maria Staritskaya.
Ivan the Terrible's mother, Elena Glinskaya, was born around 1510. She died in 1538. She is the daughter of Vasily Glinsky, who along with his brothers fled from Lithuania to Russia after a failed uprising in his homeland. In 1526, Elena became the wife of Grand Duke Vasily III. His tender letters to her have been preserved. In 1533-1538, Elena was regent for her young son, the future Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. During her reign, the walls and towers of Kitai-Gorod were built in Moscow, a monetary reform was carried out (“Great Prince Ivan Vasilyevich of All Rus' and his mother Grand Duchess Elena ordered the old money to be remade into a new coinage, for the fact that there were a lot of cut-off money in the old money and mix..."), concluded a truce with Lithuania.
Under Glinskaya, two of her husband’s brothers, Andrei and Yuri, contenders for the grand ducal throne, died in prison. So the Grand Duchess tried to protect the rights of her son Ivan. The Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire, Sigmund Herberstein, wrote about Glinskaya: “After the death of the sovereign, Mikhail (the princess’s uncle) repeatedly reproached his widow for her dissolute life; For this, she brought charges of treason against him, and the unfortunate man died in custody. A little later, the cruel woman herself died from poison, and her lover, nicknamed Sheepskin, was, as they say, torn to pieces and cut into pieces.” Evidence of the poisoning of Elena Glinskaya was confirmed only at the end of the 20th century, when historians studied her remains.
“The idea of the project that will be discussed,” recalls Tatyana Panova, “arose several years ago, when I participated in the examination of human remains discovered in the basement of an old Moscow house. In the 1990s, such finds quickly became surrounded by rumors about alleged executions by employees NKVD in Stalin's times. But the burials turned out to be part of a destroyed cemetery of the 17th-18th centuries. The investigator was glad to close the case, and Sergei Nikitin from the Bureau of Forensic Medicine, who worked with me, suddenly discovered that he and the historian-archaeologist had a common object for research - the remains of historical figures. Thus, in 1994, work began in the necropolis of Russian grand duchesses and queens of the 15th - early 18th centuries, which has been preserved since the 1930s in an underground chamber next to the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin."
And so the reconstruction of Elena Glinskaya’s appearance highlighted her Baltic type. The Glinsky brothers - Mikhail, Ivan and Vasily - moved to Moscow at the beginning of the 16th century after a failed conspiracy by the Lithuanian nobility. In 1526, Vasily’s daughter Elena, who, according to the standards of that time, had already spent too much time as a wench, became the wife of Grand Duke Vasily III Ivanovich. She died suddenly at 27-28 years of age. The princess's face had soft features. She was quite tall for women of that time - about 165 cm and harmoniously built. Anthropologist Denis Pezhemsky discovered a very rare anomaly in her skeleton: six lumbar vertebrae instead of five.
One of Ivan the Terrible’s contemporaries noted the redness of his hair. Now it is clear whose color the tsar inherited: the remains of Elena Glinskaya’s hair, red as red copper, were preserved in the burial. It was the hair that helped to find out the cause of the young woman’s unexpected death. This is extremely important information, because Elena’s early death undoubtedly influenced subsequent events in Russian history, and the formation of the character of her orphaned son Ivan, the future formidable king.
As you know, the human body is cleansed of harmful substances through the liver-kidney system, but many toxins accumulate and remain for a long time in the hair. Therefore, in cases where soft organs are not available for examination, experts perform a spectral analysis of the hair. The remains of Elena Glinskaya were analyzed by criminologist Tamara Makarenko, candidate of biological sciences. The results were stunning. In the objects of study, the expert found concentrations of mercury salts that were a thousand times higher than the norm. The body could not accumulate such quantities gradually, which means that Elena immediately received a huge dose of poison, which caused acute poisoning and caused her quick death.
Later, Makarenko repeated the analysis, which convinced her: there was no mistake, the picture of poisoning turned out to be so vivid. The young princess was exterminated using mercury salts, or sublimate, one of the most common mineral poisons of that era.
So, more than 400 years later, we managed to find out the cause of the death of the Grand Duchess. And thereby confirm the rumors about Glinskaya’s poisoning, given in the notes of some foreigners who visited Moscow in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Nine-year-old Maria Staritskaya was also poisoned in October 1569 along with her father Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, cousin of Ivan IV Vasilyevich, on the way to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, at the very height of the Oprichnina, when potential contenders for the Moscow throne were destroyed. The Mediterranean (“Greek”) type, clearly visible in the appearance of Sophia Paleologus and her grandson Ivan the Terrible, also distinguishes her great-granddaughter. A hump-shaped nose, full lips, a courageous face. And a tendency to bone diseases. Thus, Sergei Nikitin discovered signs of frontal hyperostosis (overgrowth of the frontal bone) on the skull of Sofia Paleolog, which is associated with the production of excess male hormones. And great-granddaughter Maria was diagnosed with rickets.
As a result, the image of the past became close and tangible. Half a millennium - but it seems like yesterday.
In the Kremlin, in the dungeon of the Archangel Cathedral, there is the only female necropolis in the world. More than 50 sarcophagi with the remains of noble women of medieval Rus'.
The names of some have long been forgotten. The names of others are still remembered today.
Among them: the founder of the Necropolis, the wife of Dmitry Donskoy Evdokia. Mother of Ivan the Terrible Elena Glinskaya and his wives: Anastasia Romanovna, Maria Temryukovna, Marfa Sobakina, Maria Nagaya; mother of Peter the Great Natalya Naryshkia... Some of them influenced the course of history, constantly being at the center of political intrigue. Others saw their duty as sacrificial service to their husbands. And almost each of the crowned beauties has its own secret. For example, a study of the remains of Anastasia, Ivan the Terrible’s first wife, proved that she was poisoned.
The study of medieval burials allows us to find out what the first ladies of ancient Rus' wore, what cosmetics they used, what they were sick with and what they died from, what their figures were, height, weight, hair color. History literally takes on flesh.
Using preserved skulls, forensic anthropologists reconstruct the true appearance of the Grand Duchesses and Queens.
Evdokia Dmitrievna (1353-1407).
Evdokia Dmitrievna is the daughter of the Grand Duke of Suzdal Dmitry Konstantinovich. At the age of 13, she was married to the 15-year-old Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich, who later received the nickname Donskoy. Known for her philanthropy
Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya (1508-1538).
The wife of Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich and mother of Ivan the Terrible, Elena Glinskaya, was poisoned with mercury. During the study, this was proven using spectral and chemical analysis of bone remains and hair.
By the way, the hair was perfectly preserved. This made it possible to determine with 100 percent accuracy that Elena Glinskaya had luxurious fiery red hair.
Sofya Fominichna Paleolog (1455-1503).
Nothing happens by chance in nature. We are talking about the striking similarity between Sophia Paleolog and her grandson, Tsar Ivan IV, whose true appearance is well known to us from the work of the famous Soviet anthropologist M. M. Gerasimov. The scientist, working on the portrait of Ivan Vasilyevich, noted the features of the Mediterranean type in his appearance, linking this precisely with the influence of the blood of his grandmother, Sophia Paleolog.
Recently, researchers came up with an interesting idea - to compare not only the portraits recreated by human hands, but also what nature itself created - the skulls of these two people. And then a study was carried out of the skull of the Grand Duchess and an exact copy of the skull of Ivan IV using the method of shadow photo overlay, developed by the author of the sculptural reconstruction of the portrait of Sophia Paleolog. And the results exceeded all expectations, so many similarities were identified.
Marfa Vasilievna Sobakina is the third wife of Grozny, who never happened.
According to legend, the opening of her tomb revealed an astonishing biological phenomenon. The royal bride lay in the coffin as if alive, untouched by decay, despite the fact that she had lain in the coffin for 360 years. A few minutes were enough for her face to turn black and turn to dust.
If she was poisoned with mercury salts, then such preservation and rapid destruction of the remains is quite possible.
Tsarina Irina Fedorovna Godunova (1557-1603).
Irina Godunova, the wife of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich and the sister of Boris Godunov, suffered from a serious bone disease, possibly even hereditary.
The real miracle of the underground chamber is Masha Staritskaya.
A girl who is almost 500 years old, the eleven-year-old niece of Ivan the Terrible, who was killed by Malyuta Skuratov in 1569. Her face was literally recreated from the dust in 2005.
Anthropologists were shocked by the condition of the girl's skeleton - traces of rickets were too obvious in it. This is the first reconstructed portrait of a child from the Russian Middle Ages in our country.
Some of the remains have bones in such a state that no reconstruction is possible. But scientists hope that they will be able to create 4 more portraits. In the near future, Sergei Nikitin will try to “revive” the mother of Peter I, Natalya Kirillovna.
Photo of an anthropological reconstruction (sculptural bust) of the head based on the skull of a Chalcolithic man from the settlement of Gladunino 3 / Kurgan region.
Reconstruction of the face based on the skull of a man from mound 4 of the Taldy II burial ground. The burial ground is located near the village of Kasym Amanzholova, 300 km. from Karaganda, Republic of Kazakhstan. The burial correlates with the Tasmolin culture of the Early Iron Age. The author of the excavations is A.Z. Beisenov.
Sungir 1 - plastic reconstruction based on the skull of a man 40-50 years old, whose remains were found at the Upper Paleolithic site of an ancient man in the Vladimir region. The parking lot is located on the eastern outskirts of Vladimir at the confluence of the stream of the same name into the Klyazma River, a kilometer from Bogolyubovo. Discovered in 1955 during the construction of a plant and studied by O. N. Bader.
Atlasovskoye 2 burial was discovered in 2014 in the area of the Botanical Garden of the North-Eastern Federal University, also by accident. In the grave pit there were iron stirrups and bits, a knife in a birch bark sheath, iron scissors, metal parts of a headdress, an earring, and leather parts of a breastplate with sewn metal plaques. The remains belonged to a woman who died at the age of 30-40 years. The burial dates back to the XIV-XVII centuries. (carbon dating), belongs to the Kulun-Atakh late medieval culture, which spread in Central Yakutia and Vilyui in the 14th-16th centuries.
Brusnitsyn Lev Ivanovich (1784/86 - 1857) - the son of a craftsman, in 1795 he began working in the Yekaterinburg gold mines, as a miner at a gold crushing factory. For his diligence, in 1813 he was appointed pochsteiger. For many years he searched for placer gold, and in 1814 he discovered the existence of gold-bearing layers in the river valleys of the Urals (in contrast to the ineffective tray mining on the banks). He invented mechanisms and developed technology for the industrial extraction of placer gold. He went to all regions of Russia, where he taught and introduced his method of prospecting and mining, which led to a revolution in the gold mining industry and allowed Russia to take first place in the world in gold mining by 1830. In 1814 he received the rank of Chief Steiger, and in 1835 - the rank of Chief Steiger. In 1845 he resigned and was awarded a silver medal.
Portrait of a man 50-60 years old from burial 27 of the historical and cultural site near the village of Zeleny Yar (Salekhard, Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Tyumen Region), including burials from two periods of the early Middle Ages (VIII-IX centuries and XII-XIII centuries). The restoration of the appearance of the mummified man was carried out using computed tomography and 3D printing.
The Sergelyakh burial was found in the area of the Sergelyakh highway, Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). According to AMS dating, the age of the burial is mid-15th to early 16th centuries, i.e. it belongs to the Kulun-Atakh late medieval culture, which spread in Central Yakutia and Vilyui in the 14th-16th centuries.
The remains in the burial belong to a man who died at the age of 35-45 years. Damage to the skull indicates the death of a person from wounds inflicted by a bladed weapon.
Sculptural reconstruction based on the artificially deformed skull of a woman from the Mandesarka-6 burial mound (Chelyabinsk region). Late Sarmatian culture II - III centuries AD The author of the excavations is Maria Makurova. Author Alexey Nechvaloda. Tinting of the reconstruction Elena Nechvaloda. Material: plastic, acrylic paints. Exhibition: Arkaim Museum-Reserve.
Sculptural reconstruction based on a manual model of skull No. 34640 (presumably identified as belonging to the last Inca emperor Ataulpa (?)) kept in the Museum of Man in Paris. Photos of the skull provided by the Museum of Man.
Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a woman from the Urzhar region of the East Kazakhstan region, where an unrobbed burial of a woman of the Saka period was found in one of the mounds. Ceramic and wooden vessels and bones of a sacrificial animal - a sheep - were found with the burial. The bones of the human skeleton contain remains of fabric from blue and green clothing. Gold earrings and a stone altar were found near the head of the buried woman - an indispensable attribute of women's burials of that time. The most valuable is the pointed golden headdress, richly decorated with plant patterns and zoomorphic ornaments. The headdress also has arrow-shaped pommel decorated with a spiral of gold wire. The lower part of the item was decorated with ancient zerger grooved pendants. In form and ornamental embodiment, the find resembles the Kazakh folk women's headdresses saukele and borik. Photo: O. Belyalov
Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a man from the Tashla-I burial mound. Srubno-Alakul syncretic burial ground. Excavations by Yanina Rafikova. Author Alexey Nechvaloda. Material: tinted plaster. Exhibition: National Museum of the Republic of Bashkotostan.
Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a man with an artificially deformed skull from the Tanabergen II burial ground. Late Sarmatian culture of the 3rd century. n. e. (Western Kazakhstan). Excavations by Arman Bisembaev. Author Alexey Nechvaloda. Material: tinted plaster. Exhibition: Aktobe Museum of History and Local Lore.
Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a man from mound 16 of the Berel burial mound necropolis (Kazakh Altai). Pazyryk culture V-IV centuries. BC e. Excavations of Zainulla Samashev.
Author Alexey Nechvaloda. Material: plastic, acrylic paints.
Exhibition: National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a man from mound 16 of the Berel burial mound necropolis (Kazakh Altai). Pazyryk culture V-IV centuries. BC e. Excavations of Zainulla Samashev. Author Alexey Nechvaloda. Material: plastic, acrylic paints. Exhibition: National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a woman from mound 16 of the Berel burial mound necropolis (Kazakh Altai). Pazyryk culture V-IV centuries. BC e. Excavations of Zainulla Samashev. Author Alexey Nechvaloda. Material: plastic, acrylic paints. Exhibition: National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan
