Russian law enforcement agencies during the two years of the Government Commission on the audit of museums revealed the loss of fifty thousand pieces of cultural property. This agency Interfax reported with reference to the representative of the Department of Criminal Investigation (DepUR) MIA Ilya Ryasnogo. Of the two thousand Russian museums Commission reviewed at the moment, more than eighty percent.

Large-scale audit of museum collections was launched in August-September 2006 after the detection of a major theft of items from the repository of the Hermitage. Then the Commission was established to coordinate the organization and conduct a comprehensive inspection of preservation of cultural property in the museum of Russian Federation. Its membership includes representatives of nearly all federal services and ministries, headed by a commission deputy chairman of the Russian government Alexander Zhukov.

Inspections are continuing in the major museums of the Federation, such as GMM (State Historical Museum) and the State Hermitage Museum, the exhibit and reserves which amounted to about seven million units in each.

Job State Commission will be completed in late 2008. But now identified shortfall of about fifty thousand of the museum fund. Specified that part of the exhibits are not subject to theft, but was lost with the removal or transferred to other branches without proper accounting.

representative of the Department of Criminal Investigation said that the quality of records and descriptions of museum items not hold water. According to Ryasnogo, photos, descriptions of the exhibits are in less than two million of the eighty millions of museum fund of Russia, and descriptions often consist of one word. For example, it might be just the word «cigarette» - in this case the theft and subsequent discovery to prove ownership of the subject-specific Museum is almost impossible. Evidence of it - the case of the stolen jewelry in the Hermitage. Of the two hundred and twenty-one was able to return the stolen items, only about thirty, including because of the lack of pictures from ninety per cent of stolen items.

Similarly, is the situation with the pictures. Thus, if a famous artist canvas shown in the museum's inventory as «Landscape», it allows you to simply replace rarity in any genre, similar to the picture, bought in the market of light-fingered museum. At the current level of development of the falsification of paintings reveal that substitution of only in the event of an examination. A study of all the paintings will fund more than one hundred years.

In the course of the State Commission again especially clear, and another problem, the human resources. Ilya Ryasnoy recalled the situation when three officers Astrakhan Museum were convicted of theft of paintings by Aivazovsky substitute for a copy. Unique canvas and could not find. Women were granted amnesty, and two of them continued to work at the museum, which obokrali. Their dismissal was achieved only after the intervention of the Department SD MIA. On the other hand, unscrupulous museum staff found among the leadership. Thus, in one of Moscow's museums Authority purchased at the expense of the state budget, two exhibits, one in two million, and another one and a half million rubles. When the amount of costs has caused suspicion of the Audit Commission, was appointed by examination, which revealed that the cost of items does not exceed thirty and one hundred thousand rubles, respectively. Now the issue of instituting criminal proceedings. According to Ryasnogo, to improve the crime situation in the museum would help the introduction of administrative liability of their employees are not performing their duties due to storage of funds. While this responsibility rests only archivists.

In addition, work on the prevention and disclosure of museum theft harder still and the existing law of limitations crime. Most stolen works of art discovered after dozens of years, and to institute criminal proceedings can not because of the lapse of time. As a result, the state loses the opportunity to return the rare items from abroad if they «appear» on the auctions. The same factor due to the relatively small number of criminal cases on the facts set by the theft of exhibits, the peak which occurred at the beginning of the 90-ies of the last century. In 2007, such cases were brought nine and six months of 2008 - five. Ilya Ryasnoy noted that currently, in conjunction with the Prosecutor's Office produced draft proposals for the revision of limitations on crimes related to cultural values.

Currently, the search base MIA made 60 thousand antiques stolen in the last 18 years. Among them, forty thousand icons, 3,5 thousand paintings, 4,7 thousand coins, 3,2 thousand orders and medals, 2 of 100 items ceremonial 1 600 rare books and 326 unique jewelry. Some of the exhibits, whose loss was identified in the audit of museums in this database is included.

Material prepared Anna Savitskaya

Source: interfax.ru , lenta.ru , newsru.com , artinvestment.ru