Dutch court decides fate of Crimean treasures

A Dutch appeals court will rule on Tuesday on the fate of a priceless collection of Crimean gold loaned to an Amsterdam museum shortly before Moscow annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

Four Crimean museums launched a joint legal bid seven years ago to force the Allard Pierson Museum to return the historic collection of archaeological artefacts dubbed the “Scythian Gold” to the peninsula.

A lower court said in 2016 that the treasures were part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage and must be returned instead to Kiev, adding that Crimea was not considered a sovereign state.

The Crimean museums appealed against the judgement, saying that they belonged there, and the Dutch court of appeal said in 2019 that it needed more time to decide on the matter.

The treasures themselves have remained in “safe storage” with the Allard Pierson museum, which is the archaeological museum of the University of Amsterdam, pending the appeal.

“We can’t comment on this while it is under consideration by the courts,” Yasha Lange, a spokeswoman for the University of Amsterdam, told AFP.

The rich collection spans the 2nd century BC to the late medieval era, when Crimea was at the crossroads of ancient trade routes through an area dominated by the Scythian people.

The treasures were loaned to the Allard Pierson museum less than one month before Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, and displayed in an exhibition titled: “The Crimea: Gold and Secrets from the Black Sea”.

– ‘Strongest rights’ –

Kiev says Russia illegally annexed the Black Sea territory, a month after Ukraine’s Moscow-backed president was ousted in a pro-EU revolt, and accuses Moscow of backing a pro-Russian insurgency in Ukraine’s east.

When both Ukraine and the Crimean museums lodged rival claims to the collection and sought its return, the museum was “caught between hammer and anvil” and so kept hold of the collection, the court said.

The 2016 decision by Amsterdam district court was hailed by Kiev at the time as a wider victory, with then president Petro Poroshenko saying that “not only Scythian gold is Ukrainian, Crimea is also Ukrainian.”

“We are confident that the (appeals) court will uphold the decision on the return of the ‘Scythian gold’ to Ukraine,” Kiev’s deputy foreign minister Emine Dzhaparova tweeted last month.

But Moscow reacted with outrage at the time of the lower court’s decision.

“Unfortunately this decision is an example of the violation of the rights of cultural institutions and the destruction of the unity of museum collections,” the Russian Culture Ministry said at the time.

The Crimean museums had “strong legal arguments” to support their position in court, Russia’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Alexander Shulgin, told the RIA Novosti news agency in an interview in June.

“Russia is not part of this trial, although we follow its progress. We hope the appeals court judges will hear (the Crimean museums’) arguments and return these objects of cultural value to their homeland in the Crimea,” Shulgin said.

The issue has dragged on since 2016, with the Amsterdam appeals court in 2019 saying it needed “further information” from both sides to make a decision.

It ruled that since the case appeared to be covered neither by Dutch, EU or UNESCO world heritage laws, “it is now a question of deciding who has the strongest rights”.

The court also said that the Dutch museum was “entitled to withhold the Crimean treasures until the matter has been finally decided in court”.