[MSN] Concern over the security of Russia's museum collections mounted after officials revealed yet another theft - the disappearance of a famous late architect's drawings, worth millions of dollars, from a Russian state archive.

[MSN]

Posted on Tue, Aug. 08, 2006  
 


Security issues rise for Russian museums

HENRY MEYER
Associated Press

MOSCOW - Concern over the security of Russia's museum collections mounted
after officials revealed yet another theft - the disappearance of a famous
late architect's drawings, worth millions of dollars, from a Russian state
archive.

The crime, blamed by the archive's director on unscrupulous staff, came just
over a week after Russia's most famous museum - the Hermitage - announced
the theft over a period of years of more than 220 artworks valued at $5
million.

The incidents have illuminated the lax security and appallingly poor record
keeping at Russian cultural institutions, as well as the funding crisis that
has plagued museums and archives since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Russia's cultural heritage body said Tuesday that drawings by late architect
Yakov Chernikhov, widely admired for his Soviet-era avant-garde and
constructivist (abstract or geometric) designs, disappeared from the Russian
State Archive of Literature and Art.

The agency, Rosokhrankultura, said it did not know exactly how many drawings
had been stolen but that 274 of them - worth an estimated $1.3 million - had
been recovered on the Russian antiques market and abroad.

Archive Director Tatyana Goryayeva said that some of her staff were
certainly involved.

"Unfortunately, I have to state the fact it could not have happened without
the participation of the workers of the archive," she said in televised
comments.

No one has been arrested in the archive case.

Rosokhrankultura said it became aware of the Chernikhov thefts after nine
missing drawings were sold by Christie's auction house on June 22.

Chernikhov's grandson, Andrei, said the major part of the architect's estate
- which was donated to the state archive after his 1951 death and includes
some 2,000 drawings - had gone missing. He said he learned of the theft
after an acquaintance asked him to verify the history of the nine drawings
on sale at Christie's. ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying that he asked
auctioneers to withdraw the lots.

Christie's said it had gone ahead with the auction because the drawings were
authentic, but later canceled the sales when it was proven that there was a
problem with their provenance, or the history of an artwork's ownership.

"Now that it has been established that the vendor did not in fact have title
to sell these works, the sales have been canceled and the objects returned
to Russia," the auction house said in a statement.

At the Hermitage - the ornate St. Petersburg institution that once was the
Russian czars' Winter Palace - museum officials have said the theft of the
items, which included jewelry, religious icons and richly enameled objects,
took place over several years.

Three suspects have been detained regarding the theft, including the son and
husband of a late curator who had been in charge of the collection. She died
at her workplace shortly after a routine inventory check began last October.

The head of Russia's federal culture agency, Mikhail Shvydkoi, said that
there was an urgent need to modernize antiquated museum cataloging systems
and complained that staff salaries are too low.

Just a quarter of the nation's estimated 50 million artworks have been
inventoried recently and only a fraction entered onto an electronic catalog.
Curators often keep inventory records by hand, writing them by hand in
notebooks and storing them in folders tied with string.

About 50 to 100 thefts are registered each year in Russian museums,
officials say. Although outright robberies are less frequent because of new
security measures, inside jobs are increasing.

In 2000, more than 300 masterpieces were reported stolen from Moscow's State
Historical Museum and 180 objects later disappeared from the armory
collection of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.