Sprcialist in Classical Studies, T. started his research in the field of Sumerian language to test the theory of V.V. Struve about slave labor as the basis of the Ancient Eastern economy. At the very beginning of the article, T. writes: “The myths of Mesopotamia had exactly the same specificity as the social structure of this region. Revealing this specificity can shed additional light on the nature of the social structure of the area of the Ancient Mesopotamia. That is why this side of the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian ideas about the creation of man deserves, first of all, special attention”. He quite accurately defines the features of Mesopotamian anthropogony: “The specificity of the Sumerian and Babylonian myths about the creation of people is not so much in describing the act of creation itself, but in the circumstances that caused this act, and in indicating the purpose of creating people and their aims”. Considering various versions of the myth of the creation of people, T. reveals the main purpose of human existence from the point of view of the Mesopotamian religion: “... people were created, first of all, as workers to ensure the carefree existence of the gods”. On the base of studied texts, the author of the article draws a very original conclusion: “The idea of slavery, slave dependence was imbued from top to bottom with the entire system of social relations in the area of the Ancient Mesopotamia. Just as officials (for example, scribes) at the courts of the pathesi, as in the era of the third dynasty of Ur, the pathesi of various cities in relation to their sovereigns – the kings of Ur called themselves ‘slaves’, so, at the same time, kings and pathesi, who retained a certain share of independence, call themselves ‘slaves’ (uru, arad) of the gods. When addressing the gods in prayers and during sacrifices, the worshipers usually called themselves ‘slaves’ of a certain deity. In the Babylonian era, the custom was widespread to wear amulets and cylinders, which had a protective and apotropic purpose, on which the name of the patron god and the name of his ‘slave’ – the owner of this amulet were engraved. Further, T. compares the religion of the Ancient Mesopotamia with the religions of Classical city-states, and the comparison is not in favor of the first one: “The whole system of moral ideas, which the Sumerian and Babylonian priesthood sought to instill in the masses of the population, was imbued with the idea of slave dependence. This idea is carried out consistently in the cult, in religious chants and, finally, in everyday life. At the heart of morality lay not so much a direct resolution of relationships between people, but, above all, the relationship of a person to a deity. Along with the performance of ‘work’ (dullu) in favor of the gods, which was reduced primarily, as said, to the construction of dwellings worthy of them – temples, as well as to sacrifices and to the performance of cult rites, another most important feature that characterized the attitude of people to the gods was fear of the gods, fear of incurring the wrath of a deity and causing punishment from him. This feature, completely alien to the Classical antiquity and, in particular, to the Hellenic religion, is extremely characteristic precisely for that slave psychology that permeated the entire social worldview of the population of the region of the Ancient Mesopotamia <...> In the religious ideas of Ancient Greeks, the deity does not ascend above society, but lives inside the urban community itself, the direct representative and protector of which it is primarily. The cult of the divine patron of a community almost merges with the cult of the community itself. At the same time, the deity serves as the personification of the community itself. A crime against the deity of a community, is at the same time, a crime against the community itself, and vice versa: a crime against the community or treason against it is an insult to the deity. That is why it is not the deity that acts as a punishing force here, but the community itself”. The final conclusion of the article is connected with the historian's desire to separate two social systems from each other: the Mesopotamian state and the Classical polis: “So sharply different specificity of the two types of slave societies of the Ancient East, based on the dependent position of the bulk of the population, and Classical societies, where a whole abyss separates not-free (slaves) from free civilian population, found itself no less definite and sharply expressed reflection in the religious ideas that existed in the East, in particular in the area of the Ancient Mesopotamia, and in the Hellenic policies”.