Scythian Gold Will Be Returned to Ukraine from the Netherlands

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands put an end to the issue of the so-called Scythian gold, upholding the ruling of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to return these museum exhibits to Ukraine.

The corresponding judgment was delivered at a hearing on 9 June. The court rejected the cassation appeals of the Crimean museums. This was announced by Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak.

“The Supreme Court rejected the cassation appeal of the Crimean museums, thus the court’s judgment remains in force,” the decision reads.

“After almost 10 years of litigation, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands obliged the Allard Pierson Museum to hand over museum exhibits from the exhibition ‘Crimea – Golden Island in the Black Sea’ to the National Museum of History of Ukraine. The Court completely rejected the cassation appeal filed by the Crimean museums and upheld the appeal decision which granted Ukraine’s claims,” said Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko.

As a reminder, the subject of the dispute was a collection of 565 exhibits provided to the Amsterdam Allard Pierson Archaeological Museum for the exhibition “Crimea – Golden Island in the Black Sea “. The value of the collection is estimated at approximately 10 million euros.

The exhibition was held in 2014 and ended after the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. According to Ukrainian legislation, museum objects are part of the museum fund of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine must decide where the objects from the exhibition will be returned.

The Crimean museums insisted on the inseparability of the collections and that the exhibits taken out of Crimea before its occupation by Russia should return to the museums from where they were taken. In this regard, in August 2017, the museums of the occupied Crimea filed an appeal against the decision of the Amsterdam District Court.

In October 2021, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled to return the “Scythian gold” to Ukraine. The occupiers appealed this decision, demanding that the gold be sent to Crimean museums.

Bohdan Marusyak