SIMFEROPOL, June 27 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s authorities are plundering Scythian gold from the collections of Crimean museums on display in Amsterdam right now, Crimea's Culture Minister Arina Novoselskaya said Friday.
"The gold has always been in Crimea, and what the Ukrainian authorities are doing is an illegal seizure, it cannot be called otherwise. Anyway justice will be done, and museum ethics, the decency of museum workers will outweigh the illegal actions of the Ukrainian authorities," Novoselskaya said.
“The collection is listed in Crimean museums’ inventory, and it cannot be any other way,” Novoselskaya added.
The Ministry of Culture will take all possible measures to bring the collection back to Crimea, in accordance with the recommendations of Russia’s Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the official said.
The collection of rare Crimean gold artifacts has been on display at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam since February, when Crimea was still part of Ukraine. The exhibition, which was scheduled to end on June 1, displays artifacts from five Ukrainian museums, four of which are located in Crimea. Kiev now says the artifacts should return to Ukraine, as they are Ukrainian property. According to an Amsterdam University official representative, the university’s legal advisers are looking into the problem.
Earlier, Russia's Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky said that the exhibition Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea will be on display in the Netherlands until September.
Crimea, formerly Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the government in Kiev that seized power as a result of a coup in February and rejoined Russia in March following a referendum.
