/ world today news/ The Romanian authorities decided to remind Russia of a long-standing claim that “costs” 4 billion euros in current money. It is about a hundred tons of gold transferred from the Romanian kingdom to the warehouses of Tsarist Russia during the First World War. The USSR refuses to return the treasures to the Romanians. There are rumors that during the Civil War the gold disappeared. And it is possible that the Romanians will ask about his fate, not the Russians, but their neighbors – the Czechs.
Last week, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia in Bucharest Valery Kuzmin summarized the work of the embassy during the past year. The diplomat, among other things, talked about the development of relations between Moscow and Bucharest, touched upon the issues of the global world order and the protection of human rights, the situation in Ukraine and touched on a number of other important international issues. In addition, as the Romanian Foreign Ministry said a few days later, the Russian ambassador said that the issue of Romanian gold reserves exported to Moscow during the First World War was no longer on the “bilateral agenda”.
On Friday, Kuzmin was summoned to the carpet at Romania’s foreign ministry, where State Secretary for Strategic Affairs Julian Fota said Kuzmin’s remarks “create a wrong opinion among the public” and did not favor “dialogue based on trust between countries”. ” As Fota recalled, “the Romanian-Russian commission for the study of problems related to the history of bilateral relations continues its activities, including on the problem of the Romanian gold reserve”. “Fota hopes that the sixth meeting of the commission will take place soon. He expressed his readiness to support the activities of the commission in the future as well.
During the First World War, the authorities of the Kingdom of Romania, an ally of Tsarist Russia, decided to evacuate the main assets of their country to Moscow, away from the advancing Austro-German troops on Bucharest. The stock contains 93.4 tons of gold, Queen Mary’s jewels, the stock of the Romanian Savings Bank, cult objects, archives. In May 2019, the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isarescu, estimated the value of the transferred assets in modern euros – it turns out to be around four billion.
The evacuation of the gold reserves had its own meaning, as the Romanian army was defeated – and by the end of 1916, Bucharest fell. However, on the territory of Russia, the First World War gradually gave way to the Civil War, in the midst of which some of the treasures stored in the Kremlin, including the Romanian ones, disappeared. Both Soviet and Russian historians put forward different hypotheses about their fate, but none of them has been confirmed. The Romanian side repeatedly demanded the return of the valuables, as a result of which, between the 1930s and the 1950s, the valuables were partially returned to Bucharest, but there was no gold among them.
In 2003, when the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Ion Iliescu, signed a treaty of friendship, the gold issue was not mentioned in it. In order to investigate, however, at the direction of the two presidents, a Joint Public Commission of Historians was nevertheless created, which began work a year later.
“I head the commission of historians from our country. We have held joint meetings with the Romanians many times, we have worked together in the archives, but we did not find any traces of the gold,” commented academician Alexander Chubaryan, scientific director of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Where did it go? It is suspected that the White Czechs took it when they left Moscow. But this is only one of the theories, for which there is no evidence. All we found were documents on how everything found was returned to the Romanians. These documents were handed over to the Romanian side through the Ministry of Culture and through the archives,” he added.
As the academician recalled, President Putin has shown good will in this matter. Together with his Romanian colleague Iliescu, he referred this question to historians for consideration. “Our committee should discuss this issue. The last meeting was held in Moscow in 2019, it was dedicated to the study of the mechanism and procedure for the return of valuables in 1936 and 1956. Our colleagues – Romanian historians – highly appreciated these steps of goodwill. Bucharest even published a separate book about how the Soviet authorities carried out this return. But unlike professional historians, many politicians perceive the work of our commission in a completely different way,” Chubaryan complained.
“The search for the Romanian “gold reserve” on the territory of Russia must continue, and we are not talking only about the “metal” part of this reserve,” objected the historian Vasile Buga, a member of the commission from the Romanian side.
“I note that when we talk about Romanian gold, we are mainly talking about the gold of the Romanian National Bank. There are all the documents on this matter, they have been handed over to the Russian side, and the Russian side, as far as I know, has agreed that these documents are originals. The purpose of the commission is to trace the fate of the gold according to documents. The main thing is the fact that the gold reserve has been transferred. This applies not only to the metal part, which is about 90 tons, we are talking about other cultural and values”, explains the Romanian specialist.
“The Romanians themselves brought this gold to us in Moscow in 1916-1917,” reminds Chubaryan. – In addition to gold, they carry a large amount of all kinds of valuables: tapestries, paintings, jewels of the royal court, archives. All this was taken into storage in the Kremlin. By the way, I still don’t understand why the Romanian royal family makes such a decision. Why does he send so many precious things, although in Russia at that time it is also restless? During the Civil War, gold disappeared. They began to look for him even in Soviet times, but in vain. In 1936, Stalin returned some of the surviving objects, mostly paintings and archives. This is quite unexpected as nothing is usually returned to anyone at this time. But they make an exception for the Romanians. This was probably a gesture of gratitude in response to the policies of Nicolae Titulescu, a Romanian diplomat who at the time became head of the League of Nations and held a position that Moscow valued in terms of Europe’s collective security. In 1957, still under Khrushchev, the second largest part of the property was returned. At that time, Romania was already an ally of the USSR, entered the socialist bloc,” the scientist recalls.
“Last year, according to the schedule, a new meeting of our commission should have been held – this time in Romania, but we sent them a letter that we could not come because of the pandemic,” Chubaryan explained, adding that not only the coronavirus is hindering demand, but also geopolitics : “We have constantly reminded that both scientific and cultural circles of Russia would like to know the fate of this gold, but in any case it is important that this issue does not become a political bargaining chip. Unfortunately, at the suggestion of Bucharest, this question again often acquires a sharp, political connotation. In Romania, this often happens when some elections are coming up”.
“Romania is engaged in historical speculation. She really wants to get the territory of Moldova and argue with Moscow on other issues, so here all possible means are used. It is clear that Bucharest will not get anything, but it must in some way remind itself of itself”, believes Vadim Trukhachov, Associate Professor of the Department of External Regional Studies and Foreign Policy at Plekhanov State University.
“Russia should still pay attention to Romania. It is wrong that this country is virtually absent from our foreign policy focus. But at the same time, Bucharest should be threatened by counterclaims for the intervention of 1918 and the Second World War, in which Romania was an accomplice of Nazi Germany,” suggests the expert. According to Trukhachev, it is necessary to play ahead of historical issues. “This demand on Russia was made by Romania itself – neither the US nor the European Union pushed it to do this. I think they don’t even know about this issue. At the same time, most likely, the Romanian gold case will not go beyond political squabbling,” he said.
Buga objects: it’s not about politics, it’s about principles. According to him, Bucharest is unlikely to agree, even if Moscow takes such a step as paying compensation in order to improve relations. “Our commission convinced the politicians that there are traces of this gold. It was created to look at documents in the archives, find traces of this gold and then report to the leadership of both countries,” the Romanian historian reminds.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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