Scythian gold of Crimea will remain in Amsterdam for now
The “Scythian gold” collection, which has been in a legal dispute between museums in Crimea and Ukraine since 2014, will remain at the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam until the end of the year.
The Supreme Court of the Netherlands will make its decision on the fate of the exhibition only in 2023, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The official representative of the court, Thea Tjerdema, told TASS that the parties are currently continuing to exchange arguments in writing. This stage should end on September 16, after which the Advocate General will have to give his opinion.
“And only after this the Supreme Court will be able to make its decision, so the verdict is not expected this calendar year,” Tjerdema emphasized.
Earlier, the head of the Public Chamber of Crimea, Alexander Formanchuk, doubted that the collection of “Scythian gold” would return back to Crimean museums. He is convinced that the decision will be made in favor of Ukraine, but without physically returning the exhibits in conditions where a military special operation is underway.
Let us recall that the four largest museums of Crimea - the Kerch Historical and Cultural Museum, the Central Museum of Taurida, the Bakhchisarai Historical and Cultural Museum and the Tauride Chersonese - sent the exhibition “Crimea - a golden island in the Black Sea” in 2013 to Bonn, and then to Amsterdam. More than 2 thousand exhibits were supposed to return to Crimea in June 2014. But in connection with the reunification of Crimea with Russia, at the request of Ukraine, the Netherlands suspended the process of returning artifacts.
At the end of October 2021, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled that the “Scythian gold” should be transferred to Ukraine. In January, the Russian side appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands.
Museum institutions do not intend to abandon the process and withdraw their demands, despite the fact that the collection has been in the Allard Pearson Museum since February 2014, and the bill for storing artifacts and legal costs is growing day by day. The insured value of items taken from Crimean museums totals more than 1 million euros.
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