Crimean museums dispute the return of “Scythian gold” to Ukraine
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Museums in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights. In it, they challenge the decision to transfer the “Scythian gold” to Ukraine and insist that this case violates the rights of museums.
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As Suspilne reports, this decision was made by the special representative of the President of Russia for international cultural cooperation Mykhailo Shvidkoi in a comment to the propaganda news agency TARS.
“The limit of opportunities to solve this issue in the Netherlands has been exhausted, so the museums, I emphasize, the museums of Crimea, have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. Since the museums’ rights have been violated, they filed this lawsuit, believing that the court can restore justiceShvidkoy noted.
| Items from the collections of Crimean museums, which were presented at the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea”. Photo: National Museum of the History of Ukraine |
He also added that even after Russia left the Council of Europe, museums can be sued as legal entities.
“They entered into a contract with the Allard Pearson Museum in the Netherlands, and in this sense their rights have been violated. In this sense, I believe that everything is justified. But this is a very politicized situation, there are no great hopes. But we must use this opportunity, because there is no other opportunity“, the official added.
Return of “Scythian gold” to Ukraine
At the end of 2023, artifacts from the collection were presented in the Treasury of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine “Crimea: gold and secrets of the Black Sea”. This is a collection of the so-called “Scythian gold”, which has been stored in the Allard Pearson Museum in the Netherlands since 2014.
The exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Mysteries of the Black Sea” was first opened in 2013 at the Bonn State Museum. It was created by the Ukrainian Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Institute of Ancient History of the University of Bonn.
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| Emine Japarova and Rostislav Karandeev open one box with “Scythian gold”. Photo: Dmytro Larin |
At that time, four Crimean museums presented their collections: the Tavrida Central Museum, the Kerch Historical-Cultural Reserve, the Chersonese Tavri National Reserve, and the Bakhchisarai Historical-Cultural Reserve.
After Bonn, the exhibition was exhibited in Amsterdam from January 2014 and continued until Russia’s occupation of Crimea. Some of the exhibits belonging to the “mainland” part of Ukraine were sent back, and the exhibits from the Crimean museums, which were already under occupation at that time, were detained. The management of the Crimean museums demanded that their exhibits be transferred to the occupied peninsula.
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| Photo: Dmytro Larin |
Since then, legal battles have been going on, and only on June 9, 2023, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands issued a final decision – to return the exhibits to Ukraine and pay 111,689 euros for maintaining the collection. On November 22, 2023, the Allard Pearson Museum canceled Ukraine’s debt.
Until the deoccupation of Crimea, “Scythian gold” will be temporarily stored in the Treasury, which is located on the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The collection contains 565 exhibits
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