Russia responds with a documentary to Romania’s repeated requests for the return of the treasure from Moscow. The documentary, made by Zvezda, the Russian army television, concludes that Russia must not give any treasure back to Romania, and that in fact Romania owes Russia. A month ago, the governor of the National Bank, Mugur Isărescu, announced the launch of an international lobby, through which the BNR will organize several events to reaffirm “especially at the international level, that Romania has a fully valid claim on its deposit of gold evacuated to Moscow in 1916-1917″.
According to the documentary, during a meeting in Moscow in 1965 between Ceausescu and Brezhnev, the former Russian president said, according to the Romanian protocol of the meeting, that “the Romanians owe the Soviet Union more than we owe the Romanians. Since 1917, the Romanians owe us about 300 million dollars, so about 274 tons of gold.“
“And the damages that the Romanians caused to the Soviet Union in the Second World War, according to Brezhnev, amounted to an amount that was 100 times greater than what we are talking about today. The compensations paid by Romania to the USSR compared to the value of the damages were only symbolic”.
“In 1986, the Soviet Union cumulatively transferred approximately 64 tons of gold to Romania”.
“The Russian side is still convinced that during the Soviet period, Romania recovered all its works of art and historical values. As for the gold, its value was included in the amount of Romanian reparations owed to the USSR after the Second World War. From the archival documents it appears that, in general, Romania still had a debt to the Soviet Union”.
“All the evidence is there, that Romania is indebted to us”, the Russian documentary also claims.
Mugur Isărescu, the governor of the National Bank of Romania, said in November this year that Romania has a fully valid historical and legal claim over its gold deposit evacuated to Moscow in 1916-1917.
“This year, we proposed to organize several events to reaffirm , especially internationally, that Romania has a fully valid claim from a historical and legal point of view on its gold deposit evacuated to Moscow in 1916-1917. Our main concern, at the NBR, was to make known the documents we have regarding this issue. I am referring to the original documents, I emphasize original because at the beginning they were even disputed that they were original, gathered in the special file that has been kept in the vault of the governor of the BNR since 1922 and the file was passed from hand to hand, from one governor to another another, from 1922, including during the communist period”, said the central bank governor.