190 CHAPTER 4
and Limarovka) are concentrated north of the Dnieper Rapids, in the area
where the steppe presence in the Pastyrskoe-Penkovka culture was strongest.
Two of them (Voznesenka and Novogireevka) are located further south,
near the Rapids, on the threshold between the Sivashovka type monuments
and the Pastyrskoe-Penkovka type. One monument (Kelegei) is near the
mouth of the Dnieper, surrounded by monuments of the Sivashovka type. This
way seven out of the nine monuments are in the Dnieper area, among both
the Sivashovka type monuments and those of the Pastyrskoe-Penkovka cul-
ture. The last two monuments are situated in the west, in the area near the
South Bug (Glodosi) and the Dniester (Iasinovo), between the monuments of
the Pastyrskoe-Penkovka culture and the Sivashovka type monuments.86
According to R. Rashev, “the fact that the Pereshchepina group [of monu-
ments] was part of the culture of the Bulgars from the Northern Black Sea
region or, more precisely, of their nobility, best explains its emergence in a
historical perspective. This is the ruling elite of the population that inhabited
the same territories and left behind the monuments of the Sivashovka group.
The disposition of some of these monuments on the territory of the Penkovka
culture gives grounds to assume a direct connection between its population
and Great Bulgaria”.87
86 Rashev 2007a, 119–136; traditionally, Soviet historiography associates this type of mon-
ument with the Khazars (see for example Aibabin 1985 and 1991). After the work of
J. Werner was published in 1984 any doubts regarding the Malaia Pereshchepina type
of monuments and their direct relation to the nobility of Great Bulgaria have dimin-
ished. However, the nature of some of them, whether hoards or burials (that of Kubrat
in Malaia Pereshchepina and in Voznesenka, according to the carefully constructed the-
ory of Vaklinov 1977, 35–37, of Asparukh), remains controversial. See also the first com-
plete description of the objects from Malaia Pereshchepina: Zaleskaia, L’vova, Marshak,
Sokolova, and Foniakova 2006. In their conclusion Z. L’vova and B. Marshak do not reject
the possibility that Kubrat was buried in Malaia Pereshchepina, as well as the view that
the objects found there represent a hoard that once belonged to the royal house of Great
Bulgaria. According to them, the Khazar theory is acceptable only if the hoard landed in
the hands of the Khazars after the fall of Great Bulgaria (102–117). In this connection, quite
noteworthy is the somewhat inaccurate interpretation of this type of monuments that
A. Komar makes in favour of the Khazar theory: Komar 1999 and 2000. For more details,
see Stanilov 2003a; Rashev 2007a, 132–134. In Pletneva’s view, there is no doubt that the
hoard from Malaia Pereshchepina belonged to the nobility of Great Bulgaria. She believes
that Voznesenka and Glodosi could have been left by the Khazars, but adds that the avail-
able information on this matter is insufficient (Pletneva 1999, 172–176). See also Tortika
2006a, 71–90.
87 Rashev 2007a, 135. The connection between the monuments of the Sivashovka type and
the Pereshchepina group is also accepted by Naumenko 2004a, 64–70, and Prikhodniuk