Russian state archive is also hit by thievery

Concern over the security of Russia’s museum collections mounted after officials revealed yet another theft -- the disappearance of a famous late architect’s drawings, worth millions of dollars, from a Russian state archive.

The crime, blamed by the archive’s director on unscrupulous staff, came just more than a week after Russia’s most famous museum -- the Hermitage -- announced the theft over a period of years of more than 220 artworks valued at $5 million.

The incidents have illuminated the lax security and appallingly poor record keeping at Russian cultural institutions, as well as the funding crisis that has plagued museums and archives since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Russia’s cultural heritage body said Tuesday that drawings by late architect Yakov Chernikhov, widely admired for his Soviet-era avant-garde and constructivist (abstract or geometric) designs, disappeared from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.

The agency, Rosokhrankultura, said it did not know exactly how many drawings had been stolen but that 274 of them, worth an estimated $1.3 million, had been recovered on the Russian antiques market and abroad.

Tatyana Goryayeva, archive director, said that some of her staff were certainly involved.

“Unfortunately, I have to state the fact it could not have happened without the participation of the workers of the archive,” she said in televised comments.

No one has been arrested in the archive case.

Rosokhrankultura said it became aware of the Chernikhov thefts after nine missing drawings were sold by Christie’s auction house June 22.

Chernikhov’s grandson, Andrei, said the major part of the architect’s estate -- which was donated to the state archive after his 1951 death and includes some 2,000 drawings -- had gone missing.

He said he learned of the theft after an acquaintance asked him to verify the history of the nine drawings on sale at Christie’s. ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying that he asked auctioneers to withdraw the lots.

Christie’s said it had gone ahead with the auction because the drawings were authentic, but later canceled the sales when it was proven that there was a problem with their provenance, or the history of an artwork’s ownership.

“Now that it has been established that the vendor did not in fact have title to sell these works, the sales have been canceled and the objects returned to Russia,” the auction house said in a statement.