Citat:
The ongoing preparations to celebrate in September 2015 the 2,000th anniversary of the Caspian town of Derbent constitute a classic example of the late Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's aphorism: "We wanted the best possible, but it turned out the way it always does."
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The planned jubilee has proven controversial from the outset. According to UNESCO, the site of the present-day town (population 120,000) has been inhabited for 5,000 years, and in 2010, Yaraliyev first proposed celebrating Derbent's 5,000th anniversary. But local scholars who adduced archaeological evidence substantiating that proposal were sidelined by a rival clique who persuaded the Russian Academy of Sciences that the figure of 2,000 years was more accurate.
On the basis of what one of the scholars involved called that "political decision," dictated in all likelihood by the fact that Derbent -- the oldest town in the Russian Federation -- was not founded by proto-Slavs, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree in November 2012 scheduling the 2,000th-anniversary celebration.