- Romanian Treasure
The Romanian Treasure is a collection of valuable objects the
Romania n government sent toRussia for safekeeping duringWorld War I . It was never returned in totality.Historical background
During
World War I , asBucharest was occupied byGermany , the Romanian administration moved toIaşi , 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 theUnited States , but there was the problem of transporting it there, since Germany and its allies controlled most ofCentral Europe and sending it viaNorthern 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 bankerMauriciu Blank advised him to send it to London or to a neutral country, such asDenmark , Brătianu feared the German submarines of theNorth 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 theNational Bank of Romania were not taken outside of Romania, but hidden inside a cave nearTismana ,Gorj County and from there, they were safely recovered after the war.ending the Treasure
The Romanian government signed a deal with the Russian government which stated that Russia would safe keep the Romanian Treasure in
the Kremlin until the end of the war.At 3:00 AM during the night of December 14-15 1916, a train with 17 carriages, full of
gold bar s and gold coins (around 97 tonnes), departed the Iaşi train station eastward. In four other carriages, two hundred gendarmes guarded the train. The gold load of this train hasas of 2005 a value of $1.25 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 theRomanian Academy , many antique valuables, such as 3,500-year-old golden jewels found in Romania, ancientDacia n jewels, the jewels of the voivodes ofWallachia andMoldavia , 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, most notably, thePietroasele treasure . 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 colour, 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 Russian side tried to bribe the Romanian government with it in exchange of Bessarabia [ http://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/clark/bc_25.shtml The Soviets appear to have spent all the Roumanian government money and securities deposited at Moscow during the German-Austrian invasion of Roumania, and have thus lost this asset, with which they tempted the Roumanians in earlier negotiations; but they still possess the Roumanian government archives, and perhaps have not sold the manuscripts, works of art, etc., which were brought to Moscow from Jassy with the treasure.]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; presidentsIon Iliescu andVladimir Putin decided to create a commission to analyze this problem, but no advances were made.ee also
* The "
Moscow gold ", the treasure of theBank of Spain that was sent to the Soviet Union by theSecond Spanish Republic during theSpanish Civil War References
* Irina Cristea, [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol.php?artGlobalId=42496 "Tezaur - Se reiau negocierile"] , "
Jurnalul Naţional ",22 July 2005
* Camelia Muntean, [http://www.hotnews.ro/articol_22827-Comoara-Romaniei-ramane-ingropata-la-Moscova.htm "Comoara României rămâne îngropată la Moscova"] , "Jurnalul Naţional",May 20 2005
*Nicolae Titulescu , [http://www.itcnet.ro/history/archive/mi2001/current5/mi15.htm "Cum am încercat să salvez tezaurul"]
* Andreea Tutunaru, [http://www.stindard.ro/historicum/tezaur.pdf "Tezaurul Romaniei la Moscova"]
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