Scythian Gold returned to Ukraine from the Netherlands

According to Ukrinform, this was reported by the National Museum of History of Ukraine.

After almost 10 years of litigation, artifacts from four Crimean museums, which were presented at the exhibition "Crimea - Gold and secrets of the Black Sea" in Amsterdam, have been returned to Ukraine. The Allard Pierson Museum transferred them to the National Museum of History of Ukraine. They will be stored there until the de-occupation of Crimea.

The National Museum of History recalled that from February to August 2014, the exhibition "Crimea - Gold and secrets of the Black Sea" (De Krim. Goud en geheimen van de Zwarte Zee) ran in the Allard Pearson Museum. It displayed items from the collections of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine and four museums of Crimea: the Chersonesos Tavriya National Reserve (Sevastopol), the Central Museum of Tavrida (Simferopol), the Bakhchisarai Historical and Cultural Reserve and the Kerch Historical and Archaeological Reserve.

In February 2014, Russia occupied Crimea. Items from the collection of the National Museum of History of Ukraine were returned to Kyiv after the exhibition ended. At the same time, it became impossible to return valuables from the Crimean museums to the territory not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. However, the Crimean museums, which are de facto controlled by the Russian authorities, insisted on doing that. A lawsuit was launched in the Netherlands.

In December 2016, a court in Amsterdam ruled to transfer the exhibits of the Crimean museums to the State of Ukraine under the Heritage Act. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal also ruled to satisfy the claim for the transfer of the Crimean artifacts to the State of Ukraine, but on the basis of the Law of Ukraine "On Museums" and the order issued by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine of March 2014, which gives the Minister of Culture the authority to decide on the transfer of museum exhibits for safekeeping if there is a risk of their loss, damage or destruction, the report says.

The so-called Russian Crimean museums filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, asking it to overturn the ruling by the Court of Appeal.

On June 9, 2023, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands dismissed the cassation appeal of the Crimean museums and left the appeal decision unchanged. Therefore, the artifacts were transferred to the State of Ukraine, and not to the Crimean museum, which are now under occupation.

According to the order by the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, the collection of the Crimean museums should be transferred to the National Museum of History of Ukraine for storage.

According to the final judgment issued by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Ukraine had to pay the Allard Pearson Museum EUR 111,689 with interest accrued for the entire period of storage of the collections of the Crimean museums.

On July 5, 2023, at a joint meeting at the Allard Pearson Museum in the presence of the museum's director, representatives of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and two legal advisers to Ukraine, Director General of the National Museum of History of Ukraine Fedir Androshchuk, proposed a plan for the transfer and transportation of the collections of the Crimean museums to Ukraine.

After fulfilling the obligations undertaken by the National Museum of History of Ukraine and the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, the Allard Pearson Museum refused the court-ordered payment in its favor.

In November, the items from the Crimean museums were independently inspected and carefully packed in accordance with museum rules. The artifacts were then transported to Kyiv.

Now experts are examining the condition of these items - 565 artifacts, including antique sculptures, Scythian and Sarmatian jewelry, and Chinese lacquer boxes that are 2,000 years old.