Thefts from museums

[Allena]

Article three years ago, but suddenly someone come in handy.

Shine and poverty of Ukrainian museums makes them as bait for thieves
Svetlana Bozhko, especially for the "Day»
   
  COUNTRIES inexplicable called experts robbery in 1992 Lviv Picture GALLERIES, during which the killing of two unarmed MUSEUM. ROBBERS claimed three paintings CLASSICS Polish art of Jan Matejko and Arthur Grottger
  
   
  PICTURE Edvard Munch's "Scream" (1893), one of the most famous works Expressionists. SHE was put up for THIS WEEK IN THE MUSEUM ARTISTS IN OSLO, WHERE it was stolen two years ago WITH LINEN "Madonna". This robbery is called the most loudly in HISTORY OF EUROPE
  
 
 
In September the number one news all the news agencies of Ukraine and Russia became a memorial museum robbery in the village of Fyodor Reshetnikov Sursko-Lithuanian Dnipropetrovsk region. 20 paintings Reshetnikova occupied three rooms in the school building. The thieves stole seven paintings of the famous Soviet artist: "WarGames", "Blue Afternoon", "Spring Stream" and the four still-life, which gave the artist the rural museum in 1988.

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The criminals made their way into unguarded museum through a window, they did not even saw in the lattice - the locks were opened to them without much difficulty. 84 year old smotritelnitsa museum, concurrently more and the school caretaker, to say exactly when the theft was committed, could not - ten days she was on sick leave, and the museum in its absence, no one guarding.

This is the third theft from a loud Ukrainian museums for a year. June 22 Marsh Ivankiv Raion robbed the private house of relatives known artist Maria Prymachenko.

In April of the art museum in the Kyiv region disappeared Yagotin canvases Tatiana Yablonska, Nicholas Glushchenko, Vera Kuleba, Yuri Sinister and other Ukrainian artists - a total of 33 paintings. The robbers entered the museum at night, using the fact that after three hours of the night in the city turned off street lighting. Sawing the bars on the window of the first floor, they freely entered into a museum - because of lack of funds at the museum has not been installed alarm system, and instead of the militarized guard an art gallery defended a grandmother retired. Search canvases complicated by the fact that in Yagotin museum did not have the inventory and photocopies of exhibits. Only some of the stolen paintings were randomly etched on amateur photographs of employees of the museum.

Despite this, the criminals were still found, the picture was returned to the museum, but museum officials are sounding the alarm: the state of the industry is such that robbery could happen at any time in any other place. In recent years, robbers in "visits" have been in Chernigov, Poltava, Chuguyev, Odessa, Sevastopol ... and, at best, resist them gave a guard armed with whistles. Plundered museums far from accidental. Each is a crime - Registered. Ukraine has already openly talking about the existence of "art mafia". For thieves are very influential and wealthy collectors, specializing in paintings of Socialist Realism. For many years she was a little interesting, the big museums are often refused these items in favor of small towns and villages, where they were until recently without proper protection and without much risk of being abducted. When the Western art of socialist realism became fashionable, the situation has changed radically.

- Script for criminals is the same, - told the director of the regional museum Yuri Obukhov Domotenko. - In the museum there are young people 30 years some sort, not a local. They go through the halls, are interested in painting, questioned about storerooms. And then at night, without fanfare, is robbery. I am sure that this is professional work. Eighteen months ago we have stolen two paintings, one of which was painted Deregus.

To oppose this robbery can be used only if the state develop a clear policy of support for museums and the entire national wealth, which is stored there. Today in Ukraine there are 420 state museums, even 3500 is in the Ministry of Education, 100 - in the Ministry of Defense. The number of private museums and public organizations - does no one counted. With its priceless wealth, they are practically not protected and not protected by the state. At a time when these museums and their exhibitions are dying, and buildings located in the heart of towns and cities gradually privatized, initiated by President Yushchenko developed ambitious plans for a new museum complex, models of churches, which have spared no words, no effort or expense. Thus, only for "Art Arsenal" will be spent 1 billion hryvnia. More planned to invest in Baturin complex. And, for example, for a museum in Yagotin in the budget was laid 10 hryvnia on film to make fotoopis there are masterpieces ... Only after the robbery (in a few days) Money found not only on film, but also a modern alarm system.

"OLD FISHING"

Theft of paintings - "ancient fish". One of the most famous crimes of this kind dates back to 1473 year. The work of Hans Memling's "Judgment ordered to decorate the chapel of the Medici in Florence, kind, were transported by ship. Along the way, the ship was seized by pirates. Later, one of the kidnappers presented her Gdansk cathedral, where it remains today.

The most famous crime was the theft of XX century the famous "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci in 1911. A year earlier, the director of the Louvre Theophile Omolo (shortly after the theft retired) stated that the attack on the "Mona Lisa" is as likely as an attempt to steal the bells of Notre Dame. 60 best detectives of the Paris police have not found anything except the fingerprint man, not meaningful in any index cards.

The painting was discovered in 1913, when the kidnapper, Italian Vincenzo Perrudzhio, tried to sell her antiques dealers (and he informed the police). Perrudzhio claimed that he wanted to return the painting of the great compatriot, Italy - in the form of compensation for the looting of Napoleon. The offender was working as a painter in the Louvre, taking advantage of the fact that the room where hung the painting, there was no one, he took it off, then got rid of the frame and made a painting from a museum, hidden under splodgy paint coat.

"Storm on the Sea of Galilee" by Rembrandt, "The Potato Eaters, Van Gogh," Madonna of the spindle "Leonardo da Vinci - all these pictures have in common is that they were stolen, and yet, alas, not found. According to incomplete statistics, in the search is about 500 works by Picasso, 250 - Marc Chagall, more than 200 - Renoir, fifty paintings by Van Gogh, hundreds of works of Dali.

According to statistics, found only one in ten of stolen paintings. Black art market ranks fourth in the list of the most profitable areas of criminal activity (after drug trafficking, weapons and money laundering). In a recent estimate by the FBI, its annual turnover is around 5 billion dollars. Perhaps the next several paintings from a long list of abductees be found after investigation by the Ukrainian law enforcers. In January this year, they were detained in Kirovograd region suspected of robbing a museum in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, France, Italy and Switzerland. In the car with the detainees had been hidden under the seat Ivan Aivazovsky's painting "Sea view", stolen in the summer of 2005 from the Odessa Art Museum. Police also found involvement of detainees in the kidnapping of the exposition hall of Sevastopol Art Museum of paintings of the artist Basil Polenova "Monastery of the river", which costs in the European market of 100 thousand dollars.

It is already clear that the criminals were working "to order", selling stolen "shadow" collectors rarities at a price that amounted to only 5%of their value. Outlets for the city was in one of the countries of the former USSR.

THEFT OUTSIDE

Ukraine today is not the only country in the world, where the museums steal works of art. Unfortunately, the geography of theft covered almost the entire world. The biggest robberies occur in these affluent and law-abiding countries, like Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden. The huge scandal this spring occurred in Russia, when during a routine check revealed the disappearance of funds Hermitage 221 exhibits (!), Among which are monuments of the Russian jewelry, tentatively estimated at 130 million rubles (currently under investigation by the fact that the Prosecutor General of Russia).

The largest-scale theft of stolen paintings called the FBI raid on Boston Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, done March 18, 1990. Linking the guards, the robbers disguised as policemen stole 13 paintings, among them works by Degas, Manet, Rembrandt and Vermeer. The total cost of the stolen paintings was valued at approximately $ 300 million. None of the 13 stolen paintings have not yet been found.

One of the most "wholesale" kidnapping is a robbery the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 1991, when it was stolen just 20 of his works. Thieves broke into the museum at night. The building was guarded so bad that the robbers allowed themselves to quietly view the exhibition, choosing what to take. To this they spent almost an hour. From the crime scene, they fled in the car guards. The total value stolen was evaluated by specialists in more than 200 million dollars.

Surprisingly, even in Norway, with its low level of crime the name of the artist Edvard Munch, who worked in the style of expressionism, symbolism and art nouveau, is increasingly mentioned in connection with the brazen kidnapping of his work. In 1982, out of Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo was stolen painting "Vampire" (she was found and returned to the place only six years later). In the 90 years from the National Gallery in Oslo stolen painting "Scream". Soon after the Norwegian police, is connected to British detectives, went on the trail of the kidnapper. He was an unemployed football player, who left after the abduction of the National Gallery in Oslo on a note of thanks for the bad security of the museum. And in 2004, daylight armed robbers carried out the Museum of Edvard Munch's two paintings of the artist - "Madonna" and the second version of the famous "Scream", which is estimated by specialists in more than 60 million dollars. At the end of August this year, Norwegian police found the stolen paintings and returned to the museum. Ironically, the message of the event came the same day as the reported abduction of paintings by Fyodor Reshetnikov from a rural museum in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

With this, as well as Yagotynsky theft of Norwegian crime have in common is that Munch's paintings, too, were not immune from abduction, and a modern alarm system in a museum in Oslo found only after loud abduction. One of the most affected countries should recognize the robbery art gallery in Manchester in 2003. Unidentified kidnappers entered the building and took possession of three paintings of Van Gogh, Picasso and Gauguin. Protection and administration seized on them until the next day, as cameras nothing suspicious for some reason not recorded. Soon the police sounded an anonymous telephone call. The caller said, where there are pictures. The police found them in a specific location - next to public toilets. In a note left by the criminals was specified motive: "Too bad security system and caught the eye. Fabrics were returned to the museum, but during his stay out of it badly damaged by damp.


Strange, unexplained, call specialists and robbery in 1992, the Lviv Art Gallery, during which the killing of two unarmed worker galleries - art critic Dmitry Rustle and deputy director Jaroslav Volchek. Of the almost unguarded museum to exhibit paintings by Titian, Rubens, Tropinin Perov, Kramskoy, Repin, Aivazovsky, Roerich, Korovin, the robbers took away the three pictures of the classics of Polish art - John III Sobieski at Vienna by Jan Matejko, "Nocturne" and "United Artur Grottger, estimated at 3-4 thousand dollars. Until now, one of the versions of what happened - politically motivated offenses. Just during the attack on the gallery went active discussion on the return of the cultural heritage of Ukraine, went abroad. Was not this action is intended to show the world that our country can not transmit values, because it is unable to preserve even that is?

Number 166, Saturday, September 30, 2006
 

[neorokoko]

When I learned about the theft of "Kiss of Judas" fell into a silent shock !!!!! As well, this painting, the greatest artist and with such a guard stand !!!!!!!!!!! Shame!! And so in the museums 50%of the originals left, but after a couple of year secondary and that will not !!!!!: eek: