“Scythian Gold” returned to Ukraine after 10 years of trials.
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As reported by the press service of the Kiev Customs, a truck with 2 thousand 694 kg of cultural property, known collectively as “Scythian Gold”, today entered the territory of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, where customs officers will identify the treasures in the Treasury of the National Museum of Ukraine.
Let us remember that these are artifacts from four Crimean museums that were on display in the Netherlands at the moment when Russia began its occupation of Crimea. For more than 9 years, Ukraine sued the occupiers for the return of “Scythian gold” to the territory under its control, and won all the cases.
At the same time, the Allard Pearson Museum, where the collection was kept all this time, decided not to charge the Ukrainian side for the costs of storing museum exhibits.
Background
In the summer of 2023, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands decided to return the “Scythian gold” to Ukraine. It confirmed the decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal as of October 2021.
Gold was taken from four museums in Crimea for an exhibition in the Netherlands on the eve of the annexation of the peninsula. The case involved more than 565 items worth about 10 million euros.
As an Ukrinform correspondent said, the court completely rejected the cassation appeal of the “Crimean museums” and upheld the appeal decision, which satisfied the claims of Ukraine.
The Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam received objects for temporary use from four museums in Crimea in 2014. The Archaeological Museum in Amsterdam borrowed exhibits from Crimean museums for its own exhibition, which was scheduled to run from February to August 2014. However, in March 2014, it annexed the Ukrainian peninsula. The United Nations, the European Union and the Netherlands did not recognize this separation and affiliation with Russia.
Some of the exhibits were returned to the Kiev museum, but otherwise a problem arose: legally the exhibits belong to Ukraine, so returning them to the Crimean museums, which are under the occupying Russian authorities, would be wrong. At the same time, museums in Crimea demanded that these exhibits be returned to them. In this regard, the Amsterdam Allard Pearson Museum, which houses the exhibits, decided to give them to those who are allowed by the court.
In July 2017, the court confirmed that the Kingdom of the Netherlands does not recognize the annexation of Crimea, therefore the court cannot recognize it.
Crimean museums initiated appeal proceedings in 2017, and representatives of the Ministry of Justice defended the right to transfer cultural property to the National Museum of History.
In particular, the then Minister of Justice Pavel Petrenko stated that the Crimean museums in fact only carried out operational management of the values of the Museum Fund of Ukraine. Therefore, they have no legal rights to dispose of the museum collection “Crimea. Golden Island in the Black Sea” and claim it.
The Ministry of Justice recalled that in December 2016, the District Court of Amsterdam announced a decision according to which this museum collection is illegally located on the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and therefore must return to the territory of Ukraine.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.