Internet-Project “Cultural Values – Victims of War” was presented in Russia. The project is designed to provide maximum full information on cultural values lost during the Great Patriotic War.

Mikhail Shvidkoy, Head of the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography (“Roscultura”) told about it at a press-conference devoted to launching web site www.lostart.ru. According to him, today “the most urgent task of the project is to create a list of Russian losses and understand if it is possible to repatriate them”. He noted that the lost values include those art and cultural objects, which post-war fate is unknown – they might be either destroyed or looted from Russia.

The work with the list started in the 90-s, and by early 2008 Roscultura published 15 volumes of the lost-art list. Today the list is accessible in a soft copy – visitors of the web site may familiarize themselves with a list of more than 1 million 140 thousand objects of art, rare books, scripts ad archive files that were destroyed or looted from Russia during World War II.

The web site shows the cultural values from the storages of about 160 Russian museums destroyed during the war. The list includes not only museums situated in the occupied territories but also museums, which collections were destroyed due to bombardment, fire and evacuation.

"Each Russian museum that suffered losses during the war may take pre-war documents and prepare a list of those arts that were lost. Each volume is devoted to a particular museum”, Anatoly Vilkov, Deputy Head of Rossvyazokhrancultura, told about a list preparation concept.

In spite of a large work already accomplished, the museums are far from being optimistic. According to them, they may complete pre-war art inventory lists not earlier than in 5 years. Besides, the prospects of repatriation are rather illusive because the majority of listed storage items were deleted from the museum inventory lists as far back as in the 50-s.

Totally, only the Smolensk State Museum had 65 148 inventory items on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. 26 052 items of the aforesaid number were evacuated by the last train to the east on July 5, 1941. These arts later returned to the city.

The remaining arts were looted and brought out to Poland and Germany in March 1943. The details of the lost arts were revealed due to private records and building inspection statements made by the museum employees in the period from 1941 to 1945. One of these employees, whose name was undeservingly forgotten was Vitaly Ilyich Mushketov, a Russian artist of the Smolensk Museum, who even started collaborating with the occupants in order to save the arts.

Later he accompanied a part of the museum collection that was brought out to Vilno before the ffensive of the Soviet troops. Unfortunately, during evacuation from Vilno he was debarred from packing and transportation of the arts, and recorded only approximate their route. The fate of Mushketov himself is not known too. However, his records have not been lost, and helped the museum employees to find traces of certain arts.

Partially due to his efforts currently the file has a list of 4710 lost arts of the Smolensk Museum, moreover the majority of their inventory numbers were also restored. The list includes the pictures of the West-European, Russian and Soviet Art, sculptures, icons, handicrafts, coins, arms, furniture, etc.

Many inventory lists that were kept during the war even in the museums located out of the occupied territories were also lost due to aging. In this connection the arts earlier entered in the inventory lists today have no particular owner, so the persons possessing these arts are considered as bona fide purchasers.

According to Vilkov, Russia has already succeeded to repatriate a part of the arts lost due to WWII from 22 countries. In general, many arts were brought out to Germany by fascists, however, today there are no looted Russian arts in the federal German museums. All of them were returned due to restitution.

At the same time many lost arts are stored in private collections in Germany, other European countries and USA, as quoted to Vilkov. Russia will negotiate with their holders to return the arts to Russia either free of charge or on the commercial terms.

As for the values brought out of Germany and stored in Russia, Vilkov said that they “were brought out on a compensatory restitution basis to compensate Russian cultural losses. A quarter of million of such arts are stored currently in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Hermitage, State Historical Museum and Museum of Nizhny Novgorod”.

According to Vilkov, after accomplishment of a full-scale inventory in the Russian museums, the museums that suffered losses during WWII may claim for replenishment of their collection with the German arts.

The federal officials expect that the website, which analogue is available only in Germany, may facilitate solution of the museums’ problem, and make it possible to know the fate of certain looted treasures.