SIMFEROPOL, September 17. /TASS/. Around 40 museums across Russia will hold exhibitions on the Crimean collection of Scythian gold, which the Netherlands sent to Ukraine in 2023 as efforts to return the collection continue, Director of the museum department and circus arts support Department at Russia’s Culture Ministry Ivan Lykoshin said at a news conference on Thursday.
"I would particularly like to highlight the contribution of our colleagues from the Russian military historical society, who have prepared a remarkable, informative and highly expressive exhibition devoted to aspects of the Crimean collection. The museum community has also not stood aside. At present, around 40 Russian museums have expressed their readiness to use materials from the exhibition to prepare their own displays as soon as possible, focusing on the stolen artifacts and efforts to return them," he said.
Lykoshin added that, tentatively, a significant portion of these projects will be presented to the public across Russia by the end of the year.
Fate of Crimean collection
More than 2,000 artifacts from Crimean museums were provided for the exhibition "Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea," which ran from February to August 2014 at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. The collection’s status became uncertain after Crimea reunited with Russia in March 2014. Crimean museums - the Kerch historical and cultural reserve, later incorporated into the eastern Crimean historical and cultural museum-reserve, the central museum of Taurida; the Bakhchisaray historical and cultural reserve; and Chersonesus Taurica - as well as Ukraine claimed ownership of the artifacts taken from the peninsula.
The University of Amsterdam, which oversees the Allard Pierson Museum, suspended the process of transferring the artifacts until the parties reached an agreement or settled the matter through legal proceedings. In June 2023, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upheld a ruling by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to transfer the Scythian gold collection to Ukraine. On November 27 of the same year, Ukraine’s State Customs Service told the Scythian gold had arrived in Kiev.
Crimean museums hope to revisit the issue of ownership of the Scythian gold in the future. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that the collection of artifacts belongs to Crimea and should be kept in Crimean museums.