Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctioned this Monday in New York the Nobel Peace Prize medal he won in 2021 and grossed $103.5 milliona figure that will go to Unicef to provide help ukrainian children displaced by the armed conflict with their country.
Muratov is the head of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which announced its closure until the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine due to the warnings it received as a result of its strong criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The bidding lasted around 20 minutes and was conducted by the Heritage house, which waived charging fees so that the amount can be donated in full to the cause. During that time, the price rose from $787,000 to $15 million. Later, an anonymous buyer reported by phone that he was paying $103.5 million.
This is not the first time that a Nobel medal, which is made up of 175 grams of 23 carat gold. However, never before has a figure of this magnitude been reached. Without going any further, the record belonged to one that had been sold in 2014 for 4.76 million dollars.
Muratov, who made headlines in early April after being sprayed with red paint as a train to Moscow was about to arrive, was greeted by Heritage auction house like a rock star. The shouts of the public, the glasses of champagne, the music of a piano and the flashes of the cameras gave color to the massive event.
Dmitry Muratov sold his Nobel Peace medal for $103.5 million to help Ukraine. EFE photo.
Far from contributing to that festive atmosphere, the 60-year-old editor took it upon himself to put a stop to it. “This is not a party“, he warned. And he expressed his intentions to speak about “human solidarity and the difficulties of the world”.
Before starting the bidding, he took the podium and recalled that of the 16 million Ukrainian refugees, 40 percent are children, while two thirds of Ukrainian children have had to leave their homes.
In this sense, he gave as an example a Ukrainian boy who was found in Russia and who asked him for money “to be able to recharge the phone to call his mother in Ukraine.” She then asked the viewers to put themselves in her place for a moment.
Dmitry Muratov sold his Nobel Peace medal for $103.5 million to help Ukraine. AFP photo.
“They have killed their past and now they want to destroy their future,” he stressed. Finally, she remarked that she hopes that her gesture will serve as an inspiration for other people to follow the same path.
Other Nobel medals that were sold
Heritage chief strategist Joshua Benesh praised the generosity of Muratov’s gesture, telling the news agency EFE what It is not the first time that a Nobel laureate has auctioned off his medal.
One of the first to do so was the Danish scientist Niels Bohrwinner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922. He did it in 1940, in the midst of World War II, to donate the proceeds to the Finnish Aid, an organization that also helped refugees from that war.
Nobel Prize Medal won by James Watson in 1962.
There were also other sales, although not for altruistic purposes. In 2015, the Nobel Prize in Physics Leon Lederman he sold the one he had won in 1988 for $633,000 to pay for medical expenses in the United States, after beginning to experience problems with memory loss.
Until Muratov’s auction, the highest price achieved at auction for a Nobel medal belonged to James Watson, discoverer of DNA. He had decided to sell it due to his financial difficulties. The buyer, one of Russia’s billionaire men, paid $4.7 million and, as if that were not enough, he returned the medal to Watson.
With information from AFP.