Exhibition Jerusalem

In 2019, the Russian Chronicle was published for the first time – a priceless historical source that sheds new light on many events in Russian and world history. In particular, it contains a detailed description of the pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the 16th century.
A careful reading of this description allows for an unexpected conclusion: the modern city of Jerusalem is not at all the same Jerusalem that pilgrims visited in the 16th century. The Jerusalem of the pilgrims was located about a hundred kilometers to the northeast of today's city of Jerusalem. Today, it is situated in Jordan and is called "Jerash" – a slightly modified name of Jerusalem. When Europeans searched for Jerusalem in the 19th century, they were mistaken and did not reach the place they were looking for, stopping halfway. One reason for this mistake was that in the 17th century the Jerusalem of the pilgrims was buried under a four-meter layer of earth due to a flood. It was only excavated in the 20th century.
The second astonishing fact revealed during the exploration of Jerusalem-Jerash was that it was not the real one, but the EXHIBITION JERUSALEM, intentionally created to direct the flow of pilgrims there. The idea of religious tourism, it turns out, emerged not today but as early as the beginning of the 16th century. In the exhibition Jerusalem, pilgrims were shown dozens of the most famous Old and New Testament shrines at the same place within one or two days. They charged pilgrims money, and not a small amount.