Is the "New Chronology" correct about a conspiracy of historians?

[The Barbarian]

Don't know where else to put this. I was at a party, when I found myself next to a Ukrainian engineer and we conversed about current events, politics, etc. He began to tell me about the "New Chronology", a sort of conspiracy theory by Anatoly Fomenko:

The new chronology is a pseudohistorical conspiracy theory proposed by Anatoly Fomenko who argues that events of antiquity generally attributed to the ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece and Egypt actually occurred during the Middle Ages, more than a thousand years later.

The conspiracy theory further proposes that world history prior to AD 1600 has been widely falsified to suit the interests of a number of different conspirators including the Vatican, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Russian House of Romanov, all working to obscure the "true" history of the world centered around a global empire called the "Russian Horde".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)

Apparently, a significant number of Russians (and at least one Ukrainian) believe it, or parts of it. Completely caught me off-guard; never heard of such a thing. Does anyone here know about it, or support it? It looks to me to be like flat Earth, creationism, and so on. And yet, it seems a good number of intelligent and sane Russians find it persuasive, much as otherwise intelligent and sane people support flat Earth and creationism.