Andrey Malgin about “Scythian gold”: “We demand the return of our items that were stolen”

The director of the Central Museum of Taurida in the Republic of Crimea, Andrei Malgin, in a conversation with TASS, called the accusations of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of theft of cultural heritage objects an insinuation.

The collections of the local history and art museums of Kherson were evacuated in the fall of 2022 during the evacuation of the right bank of the Dnieper. In 2023, 10 thousand items from the collection of the Kherson Art Museum, mainly paintings, were transferred to the Central Museum of Taurida for storage. April 15 Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in absentia presented charges against the director of the Central Museum of Taurida Andrei Malgin under an article on war crimes: the theft of exhibits from the Kherson region, which became part of the Russian Federation. They added that the issue of putting Malgin on the international wanted list is being decided.

Malgin said that Ukraine’s accusations of Russian scientists in the theft of cultural heritage is an insinuation, one of the forms of pressure and opposition to Russia from Ukraine: “Representatives of culture, scientists have come under attack, they are starting to hit the squares. Many archaeologists are under sanctions. It’s a pity [Александра] Butyagina. This is, of course, outrageous. I think this is all insinuation, pressure, one of the forms of war.”

He rejected the SBU’s accusations and said that the exhibits were evacuated from Kherson at the request of local authorities, this was done solely to preserve cultural heritage. The evacuation of the sites was carried out in accordance with the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.

In accordance with it, any party to hostilities in the zone of which cultural values ​​are located is obliged to make efforts to save them and not cause harm to them. Actually, that’s what was doneexplained the director of the museum.

Malgin also recalled that the National Museum of the History of Ukraine houses a collection known as “Scythian gold”, which is illegally held by the Ukrainian side:

We demand the return of our items that were practically stolen. Until they return these exhibits, there is nothing to talk about.

About “Scythian gold”

From March 19 to April 19, 2013, the Landesmuseum, located in the city of Bonn in Germany, and the Allard Pearson Museum (archaeological museum of the University of Amsterdam), located in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, signed contracts with Crimean cultural institutions for the alternate exhibition of 565 museum objects with a special historical, artistic and cultural value.

In March 2014, the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol were accepted into Russia and museums with all exhibits became the property of the Russian Federation. At the same time, at the end of the exhibition, these cultural values ​​remained in the Netherlands, in connection with which the Crimean museums initiated legal proceedings for the return of the collection. However, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in 2021 ordered the transfer of the exhibits to the Ukrainian side.

source: TASS

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