Russian Foreign Ministry Official Says Scythian Gold Will Eventually Return To Crimea

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Russian Foreign Ministry Official Says Scythian Gold Will Eventually Return to Crimea

Crimea will eventually recover its Schytian gold collection from the Netherlands, but it will take some time to resolve the legal issues complicated by the row with Ukraine, Eleonora Mitrofanova, the ambassador-at-large with the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2020) Crimea will eventually recover its Schytian gold collection from the Netherlands, but it will take some time to resolve the legal issues complicated by the row with Ukraine, Eleonora Mitrofanova, the ambassador-at-large with the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

In February 2014, the collection of Scythian gold from four Crimean museums, comprising around 2,000 items, was temporarily handed over to the Amsterdam-based Allard Pierson Museum for an exhibition. In March 2014, Crimea rejoined Russia following a referendum, and after the exhibition ended in August of that year, both Russia and Ukraine claimed that they had the right to possess the collection. In December 2016, the District Court of Amsterdam ruled that the Scythian gold should return to Kiev, but Crimean museums have appealed the ruling.

Earlier in July, the Appeal Court of Amsterdam was supposed to announce a date on which the decision on the complaint of Crimean museums would be made, but the ruling was postponed because a judge was recalled by a Ukrainian side.

"The fact that this museum collection [Scythian gold] belongs to the people of Crimea and the Crimean land is undeniable, as well as the fact that the collection belongs to the Crimean museums. The issue of returning this collection is not a question of today or tomorrow. But I am sure that the collection will eventually be returned to Crimea," Mitrofanova said.

She recalled that on one hand, there is a UNESCO regulation that prohibits dividing the collection, meaning that the collection should be returned to the same museum from where it was taken, but on the other hand, it was taken from one country, and should now be returned to another, which makes this legal case unprecedented.