Stolen 300,000 artifacts from Crimea to be presented at Russian exhibition

This fall, an exhibition of 300,000 artifacts that were illegally appropriated by Russia in Crimea is to be opened at the Chersonesos Tavriya Museum and Reserve. The Russian administration of the reserve has announced that access to the storage facility will be strictly limited.

This was reported by Public Broadcasting.

Visitors will only be able to get to the exhibition by appointment and after providing their passport data. Ukrainian monument protection activists consider such tighter control and misappropriation of a large-scale archaeological collection as another attempt to legalize cultural looting on the occupied peninsula. It should be recalled that the removal and display of cultural property from the occupied territories is a direct violation of international humanitarian law.

According to the occupation director of the institution, the building is scheduled to open in May, and a large-scale exhibition of the appropriated archaeological finds is planned for early fall. So far, 300,000 exhibits from the total collection of more than 400,000 items from different eras, from antiquity to the nineteenth century, have already been moved to the storage facility.

A special feature of the upcoming exhibition will be a strict access regime: free entrance for visitors will be closed. It will be possible to enter the halls only by appointment and upon presentation of passport data. As part of the exhibition , the Russians plan to demonstrate a collection of stone products, unique frescoes depicting hunting, as well as massive ceramic pythons for food in the reserve's courtyard.

Such actions by the occupation authorities are a gross violation of the 1954 Hague Convention and other international humanitarian law prohibiting the occupying power from appropriating, transferring or altering the status of cultural property in the occupied territories. Chersonesos Tavriya, founded in the sixth century BC, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and attempts to integrate its collections into the Russian state fund are regarded by the international community as cultural looting.

Катерина Глушко