[MSN] Chernikhov drawings worth millions stolen from Russian state archive

[MSN]

Chernikhov drawings worth millions stolen from Russian state archive
8, 2006 - 3:01 am 

By: HENRY MEYER 

MOSCOW (AP) - Drawings worth millions of dollars have been stolen from a
Russian state archive, officials said Tuesday, heightening concern about the
security of Russia's great museum collections after the revelation last week
of major theft at the famed State Hermitage.

Russia's cultural heritage body said that drawings by the late Russian
architect Yakov Chernikhov, widely admired for his avant-garde and
constructivist designs, had gone missing from the Russian State Archive of
Literature and Art.

Rosokhrankultura said it did not know exactly how many drawings had been
stolen but said that 274 of them - worth an estimated $1.3 million US - had
been recovered on the Russian antiques markets and abroad. It said it became
aware of the thefts after nine missing drawings were sold at auction by
British auction house Christie's on June 22.

The announcement of the theft comes just over a week after the State
Hermitage museum revealed that more than 220 religious items, jewelry,
enamelled objects and other precious items worth around $5 million had been
stolen.

Three suspects have been detained in connection with that crime, including
the son and husband of a late Hermitage curator who had been in charge of
the collection where the theft occurred.

The Hermitage, which was started by Catherine the Great in 1764, has vast
holdings of antiquities, decorative and western art that include
world-renowned collections of Italian Renaissance paintings, as well as
17th-and 18th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings, and impressionist works.

Cultural officials warned Monday that staff thefts at Russia's cash-strapped
museums was a major problem, blaming chronic money woes since state funding
for culture dried up after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

The head of Russia's federal culture agency, Mikhail Shvydkoi, said the
Hermitage thefts showed an urgent need to modernize museums' cataloguing
systems and he complained that staff received far too low salaries.

Tracking inventories and securing collections at most Russian museums
remains antiquated. Curators often keep inventory records by hand, writing
them out longhand in notebooks.

Just one-quarter of the country's estimated 50 million artworks have been
inventoried recently and only a fraction entered onto an electronic
catalogue.

About 50 to 100 thefts are registered each year in Russian museums, and
though outright robberies are less frequent now 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 disappeared from the armoury collection of
the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.

Rosokhrankultura said that the drawings stolen from the state archive in
Moscow, which holds documents from the 18th century, were of geometric and
architectural fantasies.

Chernikhov, who died in 1951, was noted for his 1933 book 101 Architectural
Fantasies. However, his adventurous designs were poorly regarded by Soviet
authorities and few of his buildings were constructed.

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