The battle for the Crimean Scythian gold has entered its final phase
In March 2019, Crimea and Russia celebrate the fifth anniversary of reunification. The peninsula has returned to its native harbor, but, unfortunately, part of the cultural heritage of Crimea, taken out in early February 2014 for exhibition at the museum at the University of Amsterdam, has not yet returned home and its fate is still shrouded in fog.
We are talking about more than a thousand artifacts known as “Scythian gold” (although the collection includes stone sculptures, Scythian household items and even Chinese lacquer boxes that somehow ended up in Scythian tombs), provided as part of an inter-museum exchange from four Crimean museums to the Amsterdam Museum Allard Pearson and have not yet been returned to their belongings.
Without taking into account the cultural component, the part of the Crimean collection located in Amsterdam is estimated at 1,5 million euros.
The Dutch side continues to be tormented by the question: who should give the museum relics to: Ukraine, which claims its rights to them, or Russia, which includes Crimea. Although, it would seem, the issue should be resolved quite simply: put it back where you found it, and the conflict will be resolved. Moreover, the relevant UNESCO convention recognizes museum collections as single and indivisible, and the Dutch side signed the agreement on exhibitions with Crimean museums, and not with some lousy Maidan cultural activist Nishchuk.
The Allard Pearson Museum decided to minimize the troubles by trusting the Dutch “maybe” in the hope that everything would somehow gradually sort itself out.
True, in September 2014, 19 items, including a golden helmet of extraordinary price from the mounds of Kherson Taurida, went back to Kyiv. The Crimean exhibition was sealed in court right in the museum display cases.
Kyiv, however, was not satisfied with the return of its part of the collection, and the Banderlogians who came to power began to demand the Crimean part for themselves according to the principle “first I will eat mine, and then we will divide yours.”
And in order to complicate the process of returning the Crimean collection for the Russian side, the Pechersky Court of Kyiv filed an application for its search with Interpol.
In 2016, the District Court of Amsterdam, taking into account the official position of the EU on reunification, ruled that the Republic of Crimea cannot be considered a sovereign state, and therefore archaeological artifacts are not its cultural heritage. The joyful explosion of Svidomo dupes was overshadowed by an additional judicial formulation that the parties had three months to file an appeal, which both Kyiv and Moscow took advantage of.
On March 11, 2019, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal considered the appeal of the Crimean museums. The Crimean side was represented by lawyers from the experienced law firm Houthoff, who at the hearings made a detailed and well-reasoned statement about the legal rights to the exhibition of artifacts temporarily transferred to Amsterdam.
If we compare the arguments of the parties in the court of appeal, it is noticeable that Ukrainians put the most pressure on emotions, while Crimean museums have a much firmer position, based on international laws and rules.
Thus, the main trump card of the Ukrainian defense, represented by lawyer Maarten Sanders, is the long-standing “illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation” and the rumor that speculative Ukrainian sovereignty gives Nenka the right to consider archaeological objects found in Crimea as her exclusive historical and cultural heritage.
Minister of Culture Nishchuk, who had gone to Amsterdam for a trial, clearly inspired by the experience of Svidomo’s looting of Ukrainian museums, said that it was impossible to return Scythian artifacts to Crimea, because “they will return to Crimea only for a while, and then they will move to Russia.” Nishchuk also assured the press that Ukraine does not intend to compromise with Crimean museums and demands all the exhibits of the Amsterdam exhibition for itself.
The experience of archaeological research over the past five years in Crimea suggests the opposite: all artifacts mined on the territory of the peninsula, including gold jewelry, remain on the peninsula. And if they leave the territory of the Republic, it is only to be tested for gold, since the finds are considered “products made of yellow metal” before the corresponding certificate is issued to them. Unfortunately, there is no assay office in Crimea, that’s why it’s like this.
Lawyers representing the Crimean museums in court appeal to the above-mentioned 1970 UNESCO Convention on Museum Property, which refers to the recognition of museum collections as single and indivisible, as well as the rules of inter-museum exchange.
In addition, lawyers emphasize that it was precisely because of Ukraine’s inadequate position that the Allard Pearson Museum, by not returning the collection on time, put itself in an extremely delicate position, threatening it with reputational damage. According to paragraph 2 of Article 3 of the UNIDROIT Convention, a museum collection that is not returned on time is considered illegally exported, or, simply, stolen.
Moreover. The transfer of the Crimean exposition to Ukraine will create an unpleasant legal precedent, opening up wide scope for speculation when any inadequate regimes begin to demand the transfer of museum exhibits to them under far-fetched pretexts. For example, transfer the collections of the Louvre, Prada and the Pompidou Museum under the auspices of Nishchuk on the grounds that the ancient kingdom of the Atlanto-Sumero-Ukrians covered the entire territory of Europe, as well as the entire Atlantic Ocean in addition.
In general, if we exclude unnecessary political overtones from the matter, then the “Scythian gold” should have returned to its native museums long ago, pleasing the eye and aesthetic feelings of the broad masses.
Judging by the threatening screams heard from Kyiv, the Ministry of Culture, together with the Ministry of State Affairs, intend to bull and drill to the bitter end. Nishchuk and Dzhaparova promise to hire even more lawyers and, in addition, to unleash a real war against Russian archaeologists working in Crimea, calling them “black diggers,” although it was Russia that put an end to the long-term plunder of the historical and cultural heritage of the peninsula, the objects of which were often sold for border, or ended up in the private collections of Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs.
The final fate of the exhibition “Crimea – a golden island in the Black Sea” will be determined in June 2019. The situation around the Crimean artifacts locked in the Amsterdam University Museum has become so tense that even the leading American media have shown keen interest in the case. Let's hope that victory will be ours, although intuition suggests that the final proceedings will be serious. “The last battle is the most difficult.”
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