next »

TRAILBLAZERS
for students

ArchaeoFind
Archaeology News
Articles
Browse Attachments
Calendar
Downloads
Forum
Gallery
Links
Member Map
Our News Feeds
Submit Article
Tag Cloud
Video Channel

Trailblazers
Play Phaos
Chat
Trailblazers: Virtual Tours
History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Bart]

Romanian Treasure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   The Romanian Treasure is a collection of valuable objects the Romanian government sent to Russia for safekeeping during World War I. It was never returned.

Historical background

   During World War I, as Bucharest was occupied by Germany, the Romanian administration moved to Iaşi, and with them, the most valuable objects which belonged to the Romanian state. Fearing an eventual German victory, the Romanian government decided to send the Treasure abroad.

   Among the ideas considered was to send it for safekeeping to the vaults of the Bank of England or even to send it to the United States, but there was the problem of transporting it there, since Germany and its allies controlled most of Central Europeand sending it via Northern Europe was dangerous, as the Germans could have intercepted it.

   The decision had to be taken by the Romanian Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu. Although the great banker Mauriciu Blank advised him to send it to London or to a neutral country, such as Denmark, Brătianu feared the German submarines of the North Sea and had chosen another ally of Romania in World War I, Russia, using the argument that "Russia would feel offended if we sent it to England".

   During World War II, the valuables of the National Bank of Romania were not taken outside of Romania, but hidden inside a cave near Tismana, Gorj County and from there, they were safely recovered after the war.

Sending the Treasure

   The Romanian government signed a deal with the Russian government which stated that Russia would safekeep the Romanian Treasure in the Kremlin  until the end of the war.

   At 3:00 AM during the night of 14-15 December 1916, a train with 17 carriages, full of gold bars and gold coins (around 97 tonnes), departed the Iaşi train station eastward. In four other carriages, two hundred gendarems guarded the train. The gold load of this train has as of 2006 a value of $1.40 billion.

   Seven months later, in the summer of 1917, as the war situation was getting worse for Romania, another transport was sent to Moscow, containing the most precious objects of the Romanian state, including the archives of the Romanian Academy, many antique valuables, such as 3,500 years-old gold jewels found in Romania, ancient Dacian jewels, the jewels of the voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia, as well as the jewels of the Romanian royalty, thousands of paintings, as well as precious cult objects owned by Romanian monasteries, such as 14th century icons and old Romanian manuscripts. It also contained various deposits of the Romanian people at the National Banks. The value of this train is hard to estimate, especially because most of its contents are art objects, but most likely nowadays it could even surpass the value of the other train.

The Communist Revolution in Russia

   After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the new Communist government of Russia refused to respect any treaty signed by the previous government. The Romanian government tried to recover the Treasure in 1922, but with little success. In 1935, the USSR did return a small part of the archives and in 1956 a part of the paintings and ancient objects. The most important and valuable part (about 40 of the 42 carriages), however, was never returned.

   All the governments of Romania since World War I, regardless of their political coulour, have tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a return of the gold and of the culturally valuable objects, but at the same time, all Soviet and Russian governments have refused.

The Treasure since 1917

   Very little is known about the Treasure after the October Revolution, but it appears that during World War II all the valuables held by the Soviet state (and presumably of the Romanian state) were taken out from Moscow and sent toward the regions which were 'not endangered'. However, it is clear that they were not kept sealed, as the agreement with the Romanian government said, as the chests of the archives which were returned in 1935 had obviously been rummaged through and many objects and documents were missing.

 Recent negotiations

   After the fall of the USSR, the Russian governments' position toward the Romanian Treasure remained the same and various negotiations failed. The Romanian-Russian treaty of 2003 did not mention the Treasure, but presidents Ion Iliescu and Vladimir Putin decided to create a commission to analyze this issue, but no advances were made.

 See also

   The "Moscow gold", the treasure of the Bank of Spain that was sent to the Soviet Union by the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War

 References

(Romanian) Jurnalul Naţional: Tezaur - Se reiau negocierile (22 July 2005)
(Romanian) Tezaurul Romaniei la Moscova by Andreea Tutunaru

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Treasure"

[Solomon]

Some of the politics surrounding this:

Private conversation with Gorbaciov: Iliescu complaining about IFM and the West
I. ILIESCU: And now comes the third problem. During World War I, Romanian treasure house belongings were transferred to Russian banks. We talked about it after the war, but the belongings were not found. In 1956, a part of these precious objects (the gold from our ancestors, discovered by means of archeological diggings) was found and is now deposited in Romanian museums. But nothing else was found. Maybe we should create a common commission?

M.S. GORBACIOV: This too is news to me. I am going to require a report on it. And then we can talk about it.

I. ILIESCU: Of course solution to this problem would be a triumph.

M.S. GORBACIOV: If we can do something about it, we shall. And now it is probably time for us to invite delegations in.

MOSCOW-HELD ROMANIAN TREASURE UNDER CE EXAMINATION
1999
Takis Hadjidemetriou, special rapporteur for the Council of Europe's Cultural Commission, met in Bucharest on 12 July with members of the Senate's National Security and Foreign Policy Commissions to discuss Romanian treasure held in Moscow since World War I, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. AP said that Hadjidemetriou will study Romanian archives and report to the council, which has recommended that member countries return illegally-held foreign patrimony. The treasure is one of the main bones of contention hindering the signing of the treaty between the two countries.

Visit to Bucharest of the Chairman of the State Duma of Russia, Ghenadyi Selezniov
2000
In as far as the issue of the Romanian treasure is concerned (in 1917 the Romanian treasure was sent to Moscow from Bucharest just before the capital city of this country was occupied by opposing German troops, our note) the Russian guest said that experts that are politically neutral could find a solution; however Moscow does not wish to make of this issue a precedent to others. Romanian foreign minister Petre Roman said that the absence of the treaty between the two countries should not be an obstacle in the development of relations all the more so as the commercial deficit with Russia has become accute for Romania.

The Romanian National Treasure
7 May 2002
After the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917, the Consul General of Romania in Russia informed the Allied Governments of the risk of Romania losing control of its treasure and tried to find a way of moving it to America. However in January 1918, after Romanian troops had penetrated Bessarabia, the Soviet Government declared a state of war against Romania and imprisoned the Romanian charg? d?affaires and all the legation personnel. In the Resolution of 13 January 1918 of the Soviet of the People?s Commissars the Romanian treasure was declared ?intangible by the Romanian oligarchy? and was promised that it ?would be returned to the Romanian people?. The Resolution was signed by Lenin.

Russia and Romania bilateral treaty 2003
Romanian and Russia presidents signed on July 4th 2003 at Moscow the bilateral
Treaty after more than ten years of negotiations and less than a year after Romania's invitation to join NATO. The main sensible problems between the two
countries,that impeded for a long time the conclusion of that document - the
recover of the Romanian Treasure and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact - are included
in a separate declaration signed by the Foreign Ministers of the two countries on the
same occasion. The Declaration is outlining the need to build up new relations
between the two countries, condemning Romania's participation on the side of
Hitler's Germany during World War II and made possible the creation of a common
commission, including specialists in various fields on both sides - aiming to solve
the problem of the Treasure.

The negotiations with Russia started in 1993, during another presidential term of
Iliescu that now reminded about the Romanian Treasure, transported at Moscow
and confiscated by the Soviets in 1917.

Romanian foreign minister praises treaty with Russia
10 February  2004
As for the two sensitive issues of the Romanian-Russian relation, namely the denunciation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the issue of the Romanian treasure currently held in Moscow, effort has been made to find a formula which would allow for the Treaty to be signed and for the situation related to the Romanian treasure to be ironed out, Geoana said.

Romania: President Seeks Participation In Transdniester Talks, Multinational Black Sea Task Force
19 February 2005
Basescu: This depends on the good faith of the two sides. But one thing is certain: The Romanian side has recently sent an important national-bank inventory to Russia. So the document exchange has begun, and I think it is hasty for Romania to start inquiring about the next step immediately after the document has been sent. The next step is that the Russian side and the Romanian will try to identify in Russian archives and vaults part of the Romanian treasure.

Putin brings no Romanian treasure to Bucharest
13 octombrie 2005
Yesterday Romanian minister of foreign affairs Mihai Razvan Ungureanu and Russian minister of foreign affairs Serghei Lavrov had a meeting in Moscow. But they didn't talk about the Romanian treasured buried deep down in the past of the Romanian-Russian relations. They took up general issues like Iraq, the Middle East and Kosovo.

Conflict Studies Research Centre
29 Dec 2006
Following the successful negotiation of a Romania-Ukraine treaty from which the same clause disappeared, Bucharest was prepared not to insist on the inclusion of this clause in a future treaty with Russia, in exchange for the Romanian treasure, worth some $2bn, deposited in Kremlin in 1917 for safe-keeping by the then Romanian government.

After the 1996 elections, Russian Duma chairman Gennadiy Seleznev paid an official a visit to Bucharest and insisted that although Russia cannot forbid NATO membership, Romania does not need to join NATO, which is an "archaic" and "very expensive" organization. Seleznev even hinted in a diplomatic way that if Romania opted for joining NATO, this political option "should not influence in any way the bilateral relations, knowing that a great part of the gas consumed by the Romanian economy comes from the Russian Federation". Following these comments, independent mass-media in Romania were quick to consider that the Russian Federation still has an imperial attitude because "Russian officials tried to influence the Romanian parliament to abandon the country's claim to NATO membership, and to forget the Romanian treasure given to Russia's government in 1917 for safe-keeping".

Romanian Treasure exists
8 martie 2007
Yesterday afternoon Mugur Isarescu, a governor of the National Bank of Romania, presented the Romanian President the brief of documents on the Romanian Treasure in Moscow, housed by the central bank.
Governor Isarescu told President Basescu that it was the irrefutable proof that the Treasure was in Russia. The head of state replied that he knew from reports that the Russian party denied that document. But Isarescu said the Russian party denied the right on the treasure. (...)