Crime wave threatens Russian art heritage
nikst
23 July 1998
Crime wave threatens Russian art heritage
Anatoli Vilkov, of the Russian Culture Ministry, displays two stolen
paintings, each worth about ё20,000, recovered after they were offered
for auction in London in 1996. Police are investigating 2,500 similar
thefts of paintings, icons, rare books and cultural treasures as a wave
of crime has put much of Russia's priceless art heritage at risk
(Michael Binyon writes).
Yuri Isayenko, a senior investigator at the Interior Ministry, told a
press conference that about 30,000 artistic treasures and cultural
artefacts had been stolen in the past two decades, most in an "explosion
of crime" after the collapse of communism in 1991. Old coins and
archaeological finds also fetched high prices on the black market, he
said. The Orthodox Church is a particular target. Hundreds of village
churches have been plundered, with thieves threatening clergy and
ransacking poorly guarded places of worship in search of icons, vessels,
vestments and decorations. A spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate said:
"Recently a thief tried to rob a church in Moscow while a service was
going on, and even got to the altar to steal censers before he was
caught." The treasures are usually smuggled abroad to be sold to rich
Western collectors. But so many icons have now left Russia that the
Western market is sated. Foreign connoisseurs are instead trying to buy
paintings and classical Russian art from the last century, Mr Isayenko
said. Russia has recently begun a vigorous campaign to identify its
stolen works, using courts and police channels to ensure their return.
Any stolen work worth more than $1,000 (ё600) is now routinely reported
to Interpol. The recovery of the two ё20,000 paintings, which was
reported on Tuesday, was a modest victory.
Mr Vilkov, head of the Culture Ministry's department for the protection
of cultural treasures, said the paintings had been stolen from a museum
in 1992 and were spotted at Sotheby's and Christie's auctions in 1996.
They had previously been sold at auction in Finland, but no one had
realised they were stolen.
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