Estonia will return to Ukraine exhibits from the Scythian gold collection, which were taken from Crimean museums and confiscated by border guards. This was announced by the wife of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Velida Kent.
The exhibits were confiscated in 2018 from a Latvian citizen who came from Russia. On the territory of Estonia they were restored and put on public display at the Estonian Historical Museum in Tallinn.
We remind you that on October 26, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal announced a decision on the ownership of Scythian gold – archaeological monuments of Ukraine, taken for exhibition at the Allard Pearson Museum in the Netherlands back in 2014, before the occupation of Crimea.
Head of the Board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, head of the department for legal issues and foreign affairs of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Eskender Bariiev, believes that the decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal will allow at least something to be preserved for descendants.
“Scythian gold is the cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of Crimea, in whose ethnogenesis the Scythians participated. Russia has been plundering the Crimean land and exporting cultural heritage items from Crimea for more than 200 years. And in Ukraine there is a law guaranteeing the protection of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples. The decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal will allow at least something to be preserved for descendants”,- he noted.