In December 1786, Prince Grigorii Potemkin ordered Governor Vasilii Kakhovskii to search out and collect as many ancient coins and medals as possible. Kakhovskii dutifully passed the order along to the district land captains (all of whom were Tatars), as well as the mayors and commandants of the towns of Bahçesaray, Evpatoriia, Balaklava, Arabat and Karasubazar.

Curiously, nothing turned up, save for sixty-five coins dating from the reigns of Timur (Tamerlane) and the first three Giray khans (14th-15th centuries). Potemkin promptly returned these to their owners, explaining that he was interested only in “true antiquities”; that is, items at least 1,000 years in age, “from the period of the Greeks and Romans. Turkish and Tatar items [were] not needed.”

In other words, from the earliest days of Russian rule, politics and ideology shaped the way antiquity would be defined and the way the built landscape would be managed.