Failure to return the Scythian gold collection to Crimea could be called embezzlement, Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky told reporters on May 22.
"In the event of the collection not being returned to Crimea, this will be considered a fact of approved theft," the culture minister said.
Talks with the museum in Holland are being held at the level of foreign ministries, he said.
“This week we are planning to meet with ministry officials and join in, if need be,” the minister said.
The exhibition titled, “The Crimea. Gold and secrets from the Black
Sea,” opened at the Allard Pierson Museum, an archeological museum at
Amsterdam University, in early February. It contained collections from
five Ukrainian museums, including one in Kyiv and four in Crimea. It
displays over 500 archeological finds, including artifacts from Scythian
gold, a ceremonial helmet, precious stones, swords, armor, house ware
of the ancient Greeks and Scythians.
Among the most valuable exhibits from the collection of the Central
Museum of Taurida are the items dating back to the late Scythian and
Alanian periods: a Scythian tabernacle roof top in the form of a
griffin, a Scythian bronze boiler and horse ornaments, vessels in the
form of sheep from the Neusatz necropolis.
Since the Netherlands does not recognize Crimea’s unification with
Russia, which took place after the exhibition opening, the question
arose as to whom the collection should be returned to once the
exhibition closes in August.
In late March, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent a note to the
Netherlands, asking it to guarantee the return of the exhibits displayed
at the Amsterdam exhibition to Ukraine, the ministry’s spokesman Yevhen
Perebyinis said in Kyiv earlier.
Meanwhile, Crimea has threatened to stop cooperation with European
museums if the Scythian gold collection is not returned to the
peninsula’s museums which made it available, the Crimean State Council
said on its official website.
