Illegal Online Trade in Archaeological Objects in Russia (dataset)

This dataset contains information related to the illicit circulation of archaeological objects in the Russian Federation. It includes online listings offering artifacts for sale, messages from thematic Telegram groups, and court case records from 2014 to 2024 under Article 7.15 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses (conducting archaeological fieldwork without a permit) and Article 243.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (illegal search for and/or removal of archaeological objects from sites). over 90,000 auction listings scraped from major Russian auction platforms thousands of anonymized messages from Telegram groups dedicated to metal detecting and antiquities trading, a filtered list of criminal court cases related to Article 243.2 of the Russian Criminal Code and to Arcticle 7.15 the Russian Code of Administrative Offences, collected using the sudrfscraper. `auction_dataset_en.csv` A dataset of over 90,000 auction listings collected from major Russian e-commerce and auction platforms. Contains item names, categories, normalized tags, locations, price ranges. Dealer usernames have been anonymized. Text columns were cleaned and partially normalized using the `natasha` NLP library. `auction_regions_stat_en.csv` Summary table of auction data by region (Oblast). Includes average and median prices of artifacts, total estimated value, and most frequent category of items per region. `chat_dataset.csv` A dataset of thousands of messages from six public Telegram groups where archaeological trade or discussion was observed. Each message includes anonymized user ID, chat ID, message text, and timestamp. All usernames, links, and chat titles have been anonymized or removed. No media content is included because of privacy concerns `heritage_crimes_russia_243_2_2014_2024.csv` A filtered subset of criminal court cases under Article 243.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (Illegal handling of cultural property). Includes case number, date, court, region, charge description, judge name, and URL to case metadata. Data collected using [sudrfscraper](https://github.com/tochno-st/sudrfscraper). `heritage_crimes_russia_7_15_2014_2024.csv` A collection of cases under Article 7.15 of the Russian Administrative Code (Violations of excavation and archaeological rules). Contains the same structure: case metadata, judge, region, charge text, and references to official court websites. Parts of this dataset were presented at the following conferences: “The Thing Out of Place” Roundtable (HSE Moscow, 02.12.2024) — Talk: OSINT methods in studying the illegal circulation of archaeological valuables Lomonosov-2025 (Moscow State University, 22.04.2025) — Section: Legal and Archaeological Protection of Heritage