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United States returns stolen archive documents to Russia

U.S. ambassador in Russia Michael McFaul said that five years of meticulous work had made the return of the historical documents possible

MOSCOW, June 13 (Itar-Tass) - The U.S. authorities have returned eight original historical documents stolen from Russian archives in the early 1990s to Russia. The handover took place at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Moscow.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and Andrei Artizov, the head of the Russian Federal Archive Agency, signed the relevant document.

The returned historical documents include decrees of Russian Emperors Paul I, Alexander II and Nicholas II. The most valuable artifact includes an original letter written by composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

"Currently, Russia does not have a one hundred percent statistics on previously stolen documents,” Artizov told Itar-Tass.

“No one can give guarantees that such crimes will not recur. At the same time, more than a hundred invaluable artifacts have been discovered over the past six years thanks to active cooperation between Russian and American law enforcers,” Artizov told Itar-Tass.

For his part, Michael McFaul said that five years of meticulous work had made the return of the historical documents possible. According to him, the documents were found and returned thanks to close cooperation between the United States Department of Homeland and Internal Security and the Russian Ministry of Culture.

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