The owner of the statue titled “Crucifixion with Jesus,” which was found discarded in a trash bin in Nizhnevartovsk, stated that the artifact has no connection to Jesus or to religious faith. He shared this assertion on his personal page and emphasized that the object should not be interpreted as a sacred relic. The statement adds to a broader conversation about how such items are perceived and treated when they surface in unexpected places, and it places the narrative squarely in a civilian, rather than a strictly ecclesiastical, context.
According to Konstantin Shcherbina, the statue had been kept in the apartment of a late neighbor for about eighteen months. He noted that the utilities could not remove many personal items from the living space, and this statue, along with other belongings, had lingered as part of that unclaimed trail. Shcherbina implied that if these items were not already set aside for disposal, a similar fate might await any object left in the same circumstance, highlighting how fragile the line can be between sentimental keepsakes and municipal trash.
He questioned why many people concluded that the figure depicted Jesus Christ. He pointed out a historical detail — that in depictions of the crucifixion, nails are not always present in the abdominal area in a way that fits familiar iconography. He argued that the representation in question does not align with traditional portrayals of Jesus, asserting that the visual cues do not conclusively identify the figure as Jesus. This distinction, he suggested, matters for how communities interpret and respond to found artifacts, especially when religious associations are inferred by observers.
Shcherbina also recounted that the statue had been given as a gift to a friend on that friend’s birthday, explaining the personal context behind the object. He described contacting a priest from a Nizhnevartovsk church who, after reviewing a photograph, suggested a practical course of action: the statue could be dismantled and discarded as firewood, given its lack of confirmed religious significance. The priest reportedly proposed that the figure might instead be considered the depiction of a crucified robber, a different biblical character, which would further complicate the interpretive framework surrounding the object. Previously, several Telegram channels had circulated reports about a discovery of a cross among garbage, and the ongoing discussion centered on the item’s provenance and the best path forward for storage or disposal. In that earlier coverage, the owner of the find was described as being sought, and there was talk of washing the cross and deciding where it should eventually be housed or presented, if at all. The evolving narrative shows how a single discarded statue can become a focal point for questions about religion, memory, and the ethics of disposal in the public sphere.