MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti, Oksana Finitskaya) - Experts are set to conduct a thorough examination of a Russian museum's $1-billion artwork collection that was arrested but later released by Swiss authorities after it returns to Russia, a spokesman for Russia's culture watchdog said Thursday.
Anatoly Vilkov, the deputy director of Russia's Federal Agency for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, said expertise on artwork collections that return from exhibitions was a regular procedure, but in this particular case paintings would undergo a special examination to ensure that they had not been damaged due to improper storage.
Vilkov said his agency, which is responsible for overseeing legislation related to Russia's cultural heritage, would tighten its position on guarantees, meaning that host countries must unconditionally guarantee that any third party will not challenge Russia's collections.
He said the incident would not damage Russia' cultural ties with any country, including Switzerland.
The collection from Moscow's Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, consisting of 55 paintings by famous artists, including Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Van Gogh, was arrested Wednesday in Switzerland at the request of Swiss trading company Noga, which is involved in a long-running dispute with Russia.
Later in the day the Swiss government held a special session to discuss the arrest and gave its permission for the arrested paintings to be returned to Russia.
Vilkov said he expected the collection to arrive Friday.
