The reconstruction program was approved by the corresponding authorities in Damascus and will be implemented mostly by Russian specialists, the archaeologist explained.

Work on the site, declared a World Heritage Site in 1980, is scheduled to begin at the end of summer and is estimated to last three years.

The reconstruction proposal was prepared by a team from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Institute of Material Culture History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Syrian side.

The project was prepared following a year-long research, and will be implemented under the auspices of the Russian Geographical Society and with support of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

For such purposes, the monuments of Palmyra were studied, and a three-dimensional model was made of the state of the location, heavily damaged by the attacks of terrorist groups.

Palmyra was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization due to its valuable monuments and ruins dating from Roman times.

Some of the monuments in the city were demolished by the Islamic State, which invaded the city in May 2015. It was later retaken by the Syrian Army on March 27th, 2016.

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