Kyiv is much older than it was attributed to in the USSR

Kyiv is much older than it was attributed to in the USSR (and it would be worth reviewing this and publishing the real numbers officially), but I know that you, my beloved city, will live many times longer!

Suddenly you didn’t know:

In 1982, the Soviet authorities held a magnificent celebration of “1500 years of Kyiv” — but in fact, archaeologists, led by Rybakov — a Russian comrade of our Boris Paton and the ideologist of the Soviet version of Kyivan Rus — knew that Kyiv was much older.

But officially recognizing this meant
1) recognizing that Kyiv is much older than Moscow
2) emphasizing the separateness of Ukrainian history from Russian.

Jerry Heil