Russian culture minister Vladimir Medinsky said a 2016 court decision to hand over more than 2 000 Crimean artefacts to Kiev was “absolutely politicised” and “destroys the system of exchanging exhibits”.
Russia has appealed the ruling, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.
“This can be compared only with the plundering of museums during Napoleon’s Italian campaigns or the fascist aggression” of the Second World War, Medinsky said.
An Amsterdam’s district court ruled in December 2016 that the Scythian gold exhibited should be returned to the Ukrainian side, but refused to rule on ownership, noting that this issue should be settled after the collection was returned to Ukraine.
On March 28, 2017, Russia submitted a petition from the Crimean museums to settle the Scythian gold dispute in the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. The artifacts dating back to the fourth century BC, are currently being stored in the Netherlands.
The dispute over the collection emerged following Crimea’s reintegration with Russia in March 2014, when Ukraine “claimed back” the exhibits loaned from the peninsula.
A court in Amsterdam ruled in December 2016 that only “sovereign countries” could claim objects as cultural heritage and ruled that the future of the artifacts should be decided by a Kiev court.
If the Netherlands upholds its decision, Russia has threatened to cut off future museum exchanges. Ukrainian authorities have meanwhile welcomed the Dutch court’s decision.
“If this ruling comes into force, I won’t have the right to sanction any exhibits on the territory of a country where a most dangerous precedent of seizing cultural treasures is being created,” Medinsky noted.
The museums involved are the Central Museum of Tavrida, the Kerch Historical and Cultural Preserve, the Bakhchysarai Historical and Cultural Preserve and the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos.
Director of the Central Museum of Tavrida, Andrey Malgin believes that the Amsterdam Court of Appeals could deal with the petition filed by the Crimean museums on the Scythian gold case in the winter and spring of 2018.
“The Crimean museums have submitted an appeal, and now it is being reviewed by the disputing parties. We presume that the appeal may be entertained in the winter and spring of 2018,” he told TASS on Monday.
The collection of showpieces dubbed “Crimea: Gold and secrets of the Black Sea” that was held from February – August 2014 at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam.
The Scythians, warriors of ancient Siberia, were masters of horsemanship and archery. They have been credited with inventing both the saddle and the composite bow.
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