the hermitage was robbed!
captain.
Hermitage Recovers Stolen Icon
By Galina Stolyarova
Staff Writer
One of the most valuable works of art from the haul the the State
Hermitage Museum announced Tuesday had been stolen has turned up in a
garbage can following what the local police named "an anonimous call."
It has been less than a week since Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of
museum called a news conference to acknowledge the theft of 221 precious
items from the collection's Russian Art Department.
The police received the call around midday on Thursday, and the item,
an icon worth $200,000, was found in a garbage can outside 21, Ulitsa
Ryleyeva, the police press service reported.
Piotrovsky said Tuesday that the recently discovered theft of items,
worth up to $5 million from the museum, was "a stab in the back."
"I would describe this situation as a stab in the back of the entire
museum community and the Hermitage in particular, as we try to protect our
autonomy and independence," Piotrovsky said.
Piotrovsky said the theft was discovered during an inventory of the
museum's Russian art department.
The items were not insured, Piotrovsky said. Only exhibited art works
are insured, he explained. The stolen items were housed in a storage
facility.
The stolen items include a selection of medieval and 19th-century
Russian jewelry, silverware and enameled objects. A detailed list of the
items was not available Tuesday, but museum officials promised to release
the list in the near future.
Piotrovsky also confirmed that members of the museum's staff were
suspected of involvement in the theft. "Regrettably, it is already clear to
me that the criminals apparently used museum staff to steal the precious
objects. We cannot yet determine the extent of the employees' involvement,
however," Piotrovsky said.
"The presumption of innocence and the atmosphere of absolute trust in
curators that has reigned in the museum in the past will have to change,"
Piotrovsky said. "The new economic reality has affected how people think,
and money has begun to play a greater role."
Anatoly Vilkov, deputy head of the Russian Culture Preservation Board,
told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that while the percentage of solved art
thefts has doubled over the past years, the numbers of latent thefts,
committed by the museum staff has been steadily growing, too.
Only three curators had official access to the storage facility where
the stolen items were kept, Piotrovsky said.
The curator who oversaw most of the missing items died of a heart
attack on the job shortly after the inspection began last October, said
Irina Antonova, director of Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Antonova
described the theft as a "tragedy for the country," and cautioned against
accusing Hermitage employees of complicity until all of the evidence was in.
The Hermitage has released no information about the three curators who
had official access to the storage facility.
Police have opened a criminal investigation into the theft and are
working to establish a time frame for the theft and a list of potential
suspects. "At the moment, we are looking at a time frame that covers the
last 30 years," a police spokeswoman said.
A list of the missing items with descriptions and photographs, where
available, will be sent to Interpol as soon as possible, said Alexander
Khozhainov, head of security at the Hermitage.
Piotrovsky said most of the items were likely to have been stolen
during the past few years. "A number of the items have been inspected,
exhibited or photographed for albums in recent years," he said. "Only a few
of them have not been heard of for a long time.
"Usually, if an item is missing, we eventually find it in another
department," Piotrovsky said. "That is why the inspection was extended. But
unfortunately, it became clear that the artworks in question were no longer
in the museum." The inspection was completed on July 23.
The Hermitage houses more than 3 million works of art. The collection
is regularly inventoried, but because of its enormous size, many years can
pass between inspections of any given department.
The museum has only begun to build an electronic catalog of its
holdings, and isotope identifiers, used by many Western museums, have only
recently been introduced in the Hermitage.
Not all of the missing items have photographs or electronic images of
them available.
The Hermitage spends 20 million rubles ($746,000) on security each
year. No additional security measures for personnel will be introduced at
the museum, but the system of records and controls will be overhauled,
museum officials said.
Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj
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> Hermitage Recovers Stolen Icon
> By Galina Stolyarova
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> Staff Writer
>
..... Body of article snipped , as it can be pulled up via the web. ...
True the thefts are criminal.
But nevertheless it isn't outright robbery or pillage.
While from history we know that a significant part of various
Russian collections including those at the Hermitage are collecions
of wartime and occupation booty.