Scandalous Scythian gold arrived in Kyiv: is there any chance of returning it to Crimea

Aksenov is afraid that the treasures will be stolen or sold off to private collections

Scythian gold was delivered to Kyiv from Amsterdam. A truck loaded with 2,694 kg of cultural property entered the territory of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Ukrainian customs reported. More than 2,000 storage units will now be counted there and each will be assigned new inventory numbers to replace those given to them by the Crimean museums, from where valuable items arrived for a temporary exhibition in Amsterdam in 2014. The dispute over the exhibits went on for 9 years. This summer, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands made a final decision on the transfer of Scythian gold to Ukraine. After the court decision, Russia remained in its previous positions, which were voiced by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov: “Scythian gold belongs to Crimea and should be there.”

From the very beginning, the dispute over the exhibits, which left Crimea when the peninsula was still part of Ukraine, was political. Legally, the decision to transfer exhibits from the exhibition “Crimea – Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” to Ukraine is supported by the fact that the agreement on the exhibition was signed with Ukraine, and the exhibits are given to this country after the end of the project. However, here we are talking about objects that were found on the territory of Crimea and were kept for years in local museums – the Central Museum of Taurida in Simferopol, the Bakhchisarai Museum-Reserve, Chersonese Tauride, the Kerch Museum of Antiquities. In theory, according to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, exhibits should have immunity – they are “tied” to the territory where they were historically stored. So, despite the court’s decision and the very fact of the transfer of Scythian gold to Ukraine, its status will remain controversial. At least from the point of view of Crimea and Russia. Sergei Aksenov spoke sharply on this matter: the head of the peninsula believes that artifacts in Ukraine will be stolen and sold to private collections, and only “the results of achieving the goals of the Central Military District set by the president” can put an end to the dispute. Aksenov is definitely right about at least one thing: in this dispute, everything depends on how the special operation is resolved. When this happens, what are the chances of returning him to Crimea?

“Of course, such geopolitical decisions made on each specific dispute are not the end. In some cases, this is just the beginning, says lawyer Yulia Verbitskaya, who has been involved in several trials involving controversial collections of works of art by Russians arrested in Western countries and ultimately ending in favor of Russian citizens. — Initially, the case was heard in the District Court of Amsterdam (at the location of the actual location of the artifacts), and it ruled that Scythian gold as a single museum collection belonged under ownership rights to the state on whose territory it was acquired and registered with the state. And since at the time of acquiring the collection and registering it with the state, the Crimea Peninsula was part of Ukraine, the proper owner of the Scythian gold is the state of Ukraine. The history of the origin of the collection within a specific territorial entity is, of course, significant. A likely reason for the loss in court, in addition to obvious geopolitical factors, could have been the insufficient elaboration of the position and evidence to protect and justify the existence of the rights of the Republic of Crimea to cultural property. But Crimea’s position on this case is strong.

— What precedents exist in world legal practice similar to this case? How were they resolved?

— Since the times of Roman law, there have been disputes about the ownership and return of art objects. In particular, the debate about the “Parthenon Marbles” is relevant. The essence of the dispute is that at the beginning of the 19th century, the British ambassador to Ottoman Turkey, which at that time included Athens, Thomas Bruce, with the permission of Sultan Selim III, exported to Great Britain 17 sculptures, 15 of 97 relief slabs and 75 of 160 meters of internal frieze. In 1816, the Parthenon Marbles were purchased by the British government and exhibited in the British Museum. Greece has been demanding their return since the 19th century precisely on the basis of their territoriality. It should be noted that the Greek authorities are acting very effectively. Despite the apparent “obviousness” of the dispute, they hired a professional international team of lawyers. The result of a well-formed strategy is that UNESCO announced the need to mediate between the parties in order to conclude an agreement, the subject of which could be the return of all or part of the marbles, as well as the payment of appropriate compensation. It is also important that there are several opinion-shaping movements that demand the return of the Parthenon sculptures and “marbles” to the Acropolis. So the procedure for rethinking the “colonial past” is already very active.

— And yet, can the court’s decision in the Netherlands be called lawful, taking into account the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property?

— Any judicial act, provided that an appropriate legal position exists and is developed, can be appealed and challenged. But this is not achieved through offended comments addressed to the judges.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29166 dated November 28, 2023

Newspaper headline:
Gold of Discord