The gold of the Scythians taken from the museums of the Crimea will be returned to Kiev: Russia is outraged

The court in Amsterdam ruled to return the Scythian gold from the museums of the Crimea to Ukraine, reports with the BBC

Photo: Shutterstock

The Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled to return to Ukraine the collection of Scythian gold from the museums of the annexed Crimea, which is now in the Netherlands.

Thus, the court confirmed the previous decision of the District Administrative Court of the capital of the Netherlands on December 14, 2016.

Scythians are tribes that inhabited the steppes between the Danube and Don (8th century BC - 4th century AD) and further east, reaching the Siberian expanses. This is an extremely vast territory, so finds are found in Siberia, the Black Sea region, and on the banks of the Dnieper.

The Scythian-Siberian animal style is a special manner of depicting animals in the art of the ancient Scythians. The Scythians made amazingly beautiful items from gold.

Exhibition “Crimea. Golden Island in the Black Sea" was held at the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam from February 7 to August 31, 2014 and consisted of exhibits from four Crimean museums and one Kyiv.

“The Amsterdam Court of Appeal has ruled that the Allard Pearson Museum must transfer Scythian gold to the Ukrainian state. Although these museum exhibits are of Crimean origin and to that extent can be considered part of the cultural heritage of Crimea, they are also part of the cultural heritage of Ukraine, which has existed as an independent state since 1991,” said the head of the panel of judges, Paulina Hofmeier-Rutten.

After the annexation of the peninsula by Russia, a dispute arose over whether to return the exhibits to Crimea - or to territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky welcomed the decision to return the gold. “The long-awaited victory for Ukraine in the Amsterdam court! “Scythian gold” will return to Ukraine, he wrote on Twitter. - We always return ours. First we will return the Scythian gold, and then the Crimea.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke in the same spirit.

“This is a big victory. We will regain not just museum exhibits, but part of our national code […] international law is not quick, but it is inevitable. All Russian fakes, manipulations and attempts to mislead the court failed. Just as we returned the Scythian Gold, we will return our people and our occupied territories,” Kuleba told reporters.

Crimean museums lawyer Rob Meier told the press that Crimean museums could appeal to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. As reported by the TASS agency, this can happen within three months, and during this time, as well as during the further consideration of the appeal in the Supreme Court, the Scythian gold will not yet be transferred to Ukraine, but will remain in the Allard Pearson Museum.

Russia is outraged

The Russian authorities called the decision politicized.

“The entry into force of this decision means a gross violation of the right of the people of Crimea to access their own cultural heritage, which was guaranteed by a number of international legal acts,” Alexander Molokhov, an employee of the permanent mission of Crimea to the Russian President, told Interfax.

“Unfortunately, this decision did not come as a surprise to us. Nevertheless, of course, I am shocked by this kind of attitude of European justice towards the rights, interests and cultural heritage of Crimea. This is a disgusting decision, and I regret it,” Andrei Malgin, director of the Simferopol Central Museum of Taurida, part of the collection of which is located in the Netherlands, told reporters.

Ukraine won the trial at first instance. Then the Dutch court established that Kiev should return the values ​​on the basis of the 1970 UNESCO convention, according to which cultural heritage belongs to a sovereign state.

In 2017, Crimean museums filed an appeal against this decision.

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During the previous trial, the court was guided by the fact that Crimea is not a sovereign state and cannot claim its right to objects of art. Thus, the decision on who the artifacts should be returned to should be made by the Ukrainian court after they end up on the territory of Ukraine.

"Improper Plaintiff"

Photo: Shutterstock

In 2019, before the start of the hearings in the Amsterdam court, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine said that Crimean museums registered under Russian law were not related to the agreements on the basis of which the values ​​were exhibited in the Netherlands.

“This, in our understanding, is an improper plaintiff, which we immediately drew the court’s attention to. The particularly cynical position of representatives of the so-called Crimean museums lies in the fact that in their arguments they rely on Ukrainian legislation and believe that it is according to Ukrainian legislation that they have the right to store these objects,” explained then-Deputy Minister Sergei Petukhov.

Crimean museums, in turn, circulated a statement in which it was noted that there should be no political overtones in the trial.

“We believe that the exhibits, which are an integral part of our collections, should return to their original location - the Crimean peninsula. Their status and rights are protected by law,” the museums said in a joint statement.

A dangerous precedent?

The litigation between Ukraine and Russia in relation to 500 pieces of art has been going on for over six years.

Pavel Petrenko, who was the Minister of Justice of Ukraine in 2019, told the Ukrinform agency that the insured value of the exhibits was 10 million euros.

On September 9, 2015, 19 exhibits from the Museum of Historical Treasures on the territory of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra that participated in the exhibition were returned to Kiev.

The artifacts were exported to Germany and the Netherlands even before the annexation of Crimea - at the end of 2013 - as part of the exhibition “Crimea. Golden Island in the Black Sea."

The Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam, after the completion of the exhibition in 2014, received requests for the return of exhibits from both Crimean museums and the Ukrainian authorities.

On its website, the museum said that it refused to independently resolve this dispute and sent both parties to court to decide the fate of the exhibition.

Four Crimean museums that recognized the authority of Moscow (the Central Museum of Taurida, the Kerch Historical and Cultural Reserve, the Bakhchisarai Historical and Cultural Reserve and the Tauride Chersonese National Reserve) demanded the return of the jewelry to the peninsula, where they were stored before being exported to an exhibition in the Netherlands.

Director of the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve Tatyana Umrikhina, in an interview with the Russian publication Parlamentskaya Gazeta, spoke about the politicization of the process.

“Unfortunately, the case has acquired a pronounced political character, which, of course, puts pressure on Dutch justice. At the same time, as you understand, these political circumstances are playing against us,” she said. Umrikhina also believes that this could create “a dangerous precedent when, for the sake of politics, a valuable collection will be taken away from its real owners.”

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Ukraine insists that, since the exhibits are part of the Museum Fund of Ukraine, they belong to the Ukrainian state, which has the right to demand their return to Kiev.

Petrenko noted that the exhibits were in Crimean museums on the basis of operational management rights, which cannot be stronger than ownership.

The Netherlands, like the rest of the European Union, does not recognize the legality of Crimea's annexation to Russia.

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