Chechen militants ransacked the collection over a decade ago. Then the building was bombed by Russian soldiers. Now Russian restorers are doing what they can to save the surviving works - by John Varoli.

GROZNY.

In 1994 Russian tanks entered the Chechen capital of Grozny in an attempt to wrestle control of the breakaway republic from separatists. Two years later, having failed to reassert its authority, Russia pulled its forces out of Chechnya. Today much of Grozny still lies in ruins. The Museum of Fine Art was obliterated during this campaign—a destruction which has gone unreported, despite the fact that it is the first museum in Europe to be destroyed since 1945.

I was the only journalist invited on a recent United Nations delegation to Grozny on a fact-finding mission into the future of Chechnya’s children. The delegation found that about 90% of buildings in the city, once home to 500,000, have been partially or totally destroyed, mostly as a result of Russian bombing. The Museum of Fine Arts, which housed a collection of more than 500,000 artefacts and works of art, was one of them.

Founded in 1961, the museum merged local folk culture with the artistic traditions of European Russia. Its collection incorporated nearly 3,500 paintings, including some by Russia’s most celebrated artists and there was also a number of minor European works.

The Russian and European paintings came to Grozny in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the Soviet government’s effort to build up provincial art museums. Grozny at this time was still a cosmopolitan centre, settled by many nationalities, and in the atheist Soviet Union no one gave any thought to Islamic decrees against images.

Now the story of the Grozny Museum is finally being pieced together. Chechen militants began raiding the museum even before the conflict with Russia began in December 1994. For criminals it was a source of easy plunder, while for Islamic extremists, who were becoming increasingly powerful in Chechnya, it was home to a decadent culture that had to be eradicated. When hostilities commenced, militants turned it into a gun emplacement that provoked Russian forces to bomb it, quickly reducing much of it to rubble.

While the story of the museum’s destruction counts among the most ignoble cultural tragedies in post-1945 Europe, the saving of hundreds of works of art from the ruins by Russian experts is an untold heroic story. In March 1995, while fighting continued in Grozny, the culture ministry and the emergency situations ministry launched a mission to rescue the collection. Despite mines and sniper fire, Russian art experts found nearly 400 paintings in the museum’s ruins; some were restored on location, while around 100 works were taken to Moscow’s Grabar Art Conservation Centre. About 500 works saved from the ruins of the Grozny Museum now sit in a Russian culture ministry warehouse in downtown Moscow.

On one occasion, the rescue team found a woman in the museum yard, crying and cleaning a small statue—she was the museum’s director, Nelly Shiryayeva.

“What restorers saw while sorting out the pictures from Grozny was shocking,” says Alexei Vladimirov, director of the Grabar Art Conservation Centre in Moscow. Pictures, furniture and other works of art were strewn around in the smouldering ruins. Paintings had been cut from their frames, or into shreds. Inspired by Islam’s stricture against images, Chechen vandals mutilated and slashed portraits and, judging by photos taken by the Russian culture ministry, those of women were especially targeted.

“By looking at the archives of the major museums that donated to Grozny, we were able to establish about 85% of what was in the collection before the war, and now we have a good idea of what is missing,” says Anatoly Vilkov, the culture ministry’s top official for protecting the national heritage.

And the fate of the remaining 3,000 lost paintings? Most are believed to have ended up in the hands of militants to help fund their activities. Two 18th-century portraits by Alexander Molinari and Stephen Shchukin from the Grozny Museum turned up in London at a Sotheby’s auction in 2001. Both had estimates of £40,000/£60,000 ($68,000/ $102,000). They were withdrawn from the sale and returned to Russia.

A third painting, Roubaud’s The capture of Shamil in August 1859 (1886) was recovered, damaged, by Russian police in 1999 as it was being smuggled into Azerbaijan. “I think we’ll see more works from the Grozny Museum surface on the art market in the near future,” says Mr Vilkov.

Meanwhile, the Russian government says it plans to rebuild the museum. In May, the Russian branch of the International Council of Museums worked out an aid plan which includes the training of museum staff and the provision of equipment.

“I can’t describe the feeling of pain and embarrassment I felt when travelling in Chechnya,’’ Vitaly Remizov, the head of Russia’s ICOM branch, told reporters after his visit to the republic. “The museums of Chechnya need our help, and rebuilding them is a matter of honour.”

Back 24.02.2006.