Moldova will return two stolen paintings to Russia

Luni, 9 iunie 2008, 14:31 English | Regional Europe

Moldavian President Vladimir Voronin has attended the unofficial CSI summit in Sankt Petersburg and brought with him two stolen paintings from Hermitage in order to return them to Russia, Vremia novostei informs. Voronin did not get into more details about the paintings but he declared that these were recovered by Moldavian secret services in Chisinau.

At his turn, Russian President Medvedev officially thanked his Moldovan counterpart and declared that it is an excellent news for Russia. However, in the last years no painting was stolen from the Hermitage Museum, museum spokesperson Larisa Korabelnikova declared.

Chisinau Interior minister explained that the paintings are part of the 211 works signaled in 2006 by Hermitage during an official inventory of the museum's patrimony. He added that the paintings pertain to Vasily Polenov and Boris Johanson and each painting values 1 million dollars.