On July 5, the presentation of the exhibition “Treasures of Crimea. Return” took place in the Treasury of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine.
In June 2023, our country won a historic victory in the international legal field: the Supreme Court of the Netherlands confirmed the decision of the courts of previous instances to return to Ukraine the artifacts of the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea”, which was active in the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam. These are ancient Greek, ancient Roman, late Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnic and Gothic items found during the XIX-XX centuries during archaeological research in the Crimea.
565 exhibits consisting of 2,111 items from the collection of four Crimean museums are exhibited in Kyiv: the Central Museum of Tavrida, the Kerch Historical and Cultural Reserve, the National Reserve “Khersones Tavriyskyi” and the Bakhchysarai Historical and Cultural Reserve.
Let us recall that in the Dutch process, Russia unsuccessfully covered itself with “Crimean museums”, which it did not specifically “re-register” for this purpose, and then these ephemeral “owners” filed an application against the Netherlands with the European Court of Human Rights, however, with a rather obvious ending.
The artifacts are called “Scythian gold” conventionally; in fact, in addition to purely Scythian treasures, the collection includes pottery, stone figures, jewelry and more. The exhibition also talks about the plunder of the archaeological heritage of Crimea, which is carried out by Russian aggressors in the territories they occupied.
The return of the artifacts lasted 9 years and consisted of three stages: court cases, safe transportation of treasures from Europe to Ukraine and the painstaking work of describing and cataloging them.
The transfer of artifacts known as “Scythian gold” is a logical and fair conclusion to long-term legal battles over ownership between Ukraine and the “Crimean museums,” and in fact, Russia, which occupied the peninsula. The decisions of the Dutch courts, despite the different approaches of the three instances, confirmed the rights of Ukraine to the Crimean cultural heritage.
The exposition in the walls of the Treasury will be permanent and will continue until the final deoccupation of Crimea, after which the collection is planned to be moved to the territory of the peninsula.
Earlier, on July 4, the exhibition was visited by the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, together with whom the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Ukraine Jennes de Mol, acting Minister of Culture and information policy of Ukraine Rostyslav Karandeev, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Olena Kovalska.
Press Attache of Association Ruslan Deremedved
