The Court of Appeal in Amsterdam on October 26 recognized the collection of Scythian gold as the property of Ukraine and ordered to hand it over to the country’s authorities.
The decision of the Dutch court is a manifestation of double standards, disregard for the cultural heritage of the peoples of Crimea, the director of the Central Museum of Tavrida Andrei Malgin said on October 26.
According to him, the court’s decision is “disgusting” and “vile”, as it does not correspond to logic and violates the rights of Crimeans in access to their cultural heritage. Crimean museums are likely to appeal the decision if lawyers deem it possible, he stressed.
At the same time, lawyer Rob Meyer, representing the interests of the museums of the peninsula, said that there are possibilities to appeal the decision.
“Fortunately, the court did not go so far as to order the enforcement of its own decision, which will depend on whether Crimean museums go to the Supreme Court,” he said.
Managing partner of JSB Avdeev & Partners, Yuri Avdeev, said that the court’s decision was controversial. He pointed out that the legal position of the museum, which is the owner of the items, is based on the eternal belonging to a legal entity, and not to the state as such. Probably, the Dutch court decided the question to whom to transfer the items that make up the collection, and not the question of ownership. If the court had the right to determine who is the owner of the items, then the outcome of the case would be obvious, the expert said.
Earlier that day, the director of the State Historical Museum, Alexei Levykin, said the court ruling was clearly political, not cultural. According to him, earlier there was a feeling that the outcome of the proceedings would be sad. In the Netherlands, they clearly understood what they had to do, says Levykin. If the Dutch felt they were right from the beginning of the trial, they would have returned the collection to Kiev “literally the next day,” he concluded.
On October 26, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called the court’s decision just and long-awaited.
In turn, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmyhal, commenting on this decision, noted at his briefing that the authorities have not yet identified a place for storing gold. It is likely that it will be kept in the Hagia Sophia in Kiev.
At the same time, earlier that day, the ex-deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the Opposition Bloc, Yevgeny Balitsky, in an interview with Izvestia, pointed out that the Scythian gold belongs to the people who live in the territory where it was found, that is, the Crimeans.
Deputy head of the working group on international legal issues at the permanent representation of the Crimea under the President of the Russian Federation, Alexander Molokhov, indicated that Russia would challenge the court’s decision. The appeal will be filed in the coming days.
The controversial exhibits were sent to the Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea exhibition at the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam in February 2014, even before Crimea joined Russia. A total of 190 items were sent to the capital of the Netherlands: two sets of jewelry made of precious metals dating from the 5th century. AD, ceramics and sculpture.
After the reunification of Crimea with the Russian Federation following a referendum in 2014, Moscow and Kiev demanded that the collection be returned.
In 2016, the Amsterdam District Court, based on the 1970 UNESCO convention, declared that the artifacts should be returned to Ukraine, and the question of the collection’s ownership should be decided after that. Crimean museums have filed an appeal against this decision, because they believe that after getting to Kiev, the jewelry will not return to the republic. In July 2019, an interim court decision was made in the case, in which it found that the 1970 UNESCO Convention, to which Ukraine had previously referred, was not applicable to this case.