Finger-wagging for destroying ancient cemeteries, but criminal penalty for collecting antiques

Latvian antiquarians are still not allowed to keep things older than 1700 in their collections; due to the strictness of Latvian law, valuable antiques and collections are flowing out of Latvia towards Estonia and the Scandinavian countries - Igo Zilbers, a collector with more than 40 years of experience, told Neatkarīgā on behalf of the Riga Collectors' Association.

On February 2 of this year, amendments to the Criminal Law came into force, which provide for criminal liability for illegal storage, trade, transportation of cultural property and antiques. The changes in the legislation did not fix the confusing and illogical regulation on the gathering, circulation and collection of ancient things, but made it even more absurd.

Relatively, in the countries of the European Union, especially in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, etc., the norms are not that strict. There it is still easier to organize collectors' meetings, auctions to buy, sell or exchange antiques.

The men in power pretend not to hear

Representatives of the Riga Collectors' Association have repeatedly addressed Ritvars Jansons (National Alliance, Nacionālā apvienība), Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, this year with proposals to fix the legislation, but no constructive reaction has followed: “Unfortunately, for four months now, he has not lifted a finger to encourage amendments to the law to fix the industry. The provisions of the Criminal Law under which a penalty is imposed if you have not complied with the requirements would be acceptable. However, there is chaos and uncertainty about the requirements for collectors. The current requirements are undoable. They are written as if for noble purposes, but so formally, so bureaucratically, that they cannot be fulfilled. For example, if you want to leave the country with a pile of old tsarist paper money or faded coins, items older than 100 years, regardless of their place of origin, you have to go through a lot of bureaucratic procedures that require nerves, time and increase their cost at least ten times. Therefore, everyone ignored these rules and unwillingly become smugglers - criminals. It would be understandable if the law applied to masterpieces, but not to items priced between 10 and 50 cents. Due to stupid rules, the collector does not currently have the opportunity to collect coins that are older than 1700. Collectors around the world are allowed to create such collections, but this is not possible in Latvia.

Due to Latvian legislation, the opposite effect has been achieved - the old coins found are not shown to museums, whose specialists determine whether they are necessary for the state or not, but everything found travels in one direction to Estonia and Sweden, Lithuania and Poland, where there is much more liberal legislation. Latvia loses much more from illogical claims than it would have gained without such claims. Instead of writing normal rules that can be followed, the state becomes a racketeer; spends resources on repressing, tracking, searching and prosecuting collectors. The whole problem is that there has been no lustration. Former Komsomol activists, Komsomol secretaries, I think, have finally found a way to implement Lenin's ideas and continue to expropriate people's property, as it was done a hundred years ago in Russia. This requires large budget funds, which would be wiser to use when buying back the most valuable coins or collections from collectors,” explained I. Zilbers, a member of the Riga Collectors' Association, to Neatkarīgā.

Contradictory attitude

I. Zilbers did not hide that two disproportionately contradictory events that took place at the beginning of this year caused giant outrage among collectors. In January of this year, news appeared that the National Cultural Heritage Board had imposed a fine of 2,500 euros on the state joint-stock company Latvijas valsts meži (LVM) for destroying an ancient cemetery. During logging operations, LVM destroyed the Avotiņi ancient cemetery in Liezēre parish and the adjacent castle mound. Although Article 229 of the Criminal Law provides that “For the destruction, damaging or desecration of a cultural monument protected by the State - the applicable punishment is the deprivation of liberty for a period of up to three years or temporary deprivation of liberty, or community service, or a fine,” the state was not severe to its enterprise. LVM officials apologized to the officials of the National Cultural Heritage Board and the public, saying that the situation was "due to a misunderstanding with the issued approvals from the National Cultural Heritage Board". The employees did not fully understand the essence of the approvals. The rich company LVM was fined just 2,500 euros without criminal proceedings.

At the same time, collectors who try to sell or buy some older coin online, even if the state will not need it, are systematically persecuted. More often than not, the authorities, as if showing mercy, persuade collectors to return the property voluntarily. Then the pensioner is not sentenced to imprisonment - he is forced to pay a fine of 1,500 euros, which, for to his meager income, means the same as imprisonment. Only a few decide to fight the country. Collector Edvards Fombergs is currently involved in criminal proceedings for the purchase of antiques on the Internet and at antique fairs.

"There is no logic in our legal system if criminal liability sets in for the possession of property that is older than 300 years, but at the same time no criminal case is initiated if a tractor destroys a castle mound and ancient cemetery," explained I. Zilbers.

According to him, the legislative system could be fixed starting from even small aspects, for example, if the legislation separated archeological items from numismatic, to which other rules of circulation should be applied.

Arrogant attitude

I. Zilbers emphasized that state officials do not want to establish cooperation with those collectors who would be ready to offer the state to buy back the most valuable collections or certain valuable objects: “Several years ago I wanted to expand cooperation with the Latvian National Museum of History. I was faced with a very arrogant attitude. Afterwards, I regretted the attempt to contact. It was a nightmare. I brought a hundred-year-old church worker's silver insignia to the museum. They laughed at me. Such an insignia falls under a sub-sector of phaleristics. Such insignias of the leaders of the congregations of the Lutheran churches are usually in one copy only. These insignias are unique. They are silver and almost a hundred years old.

In Latvia, museums are very hostile to collectors. During the interwar period, Latvian museums gladly cooperated with collectors and repurchased the most valuable collections. Collectors have now become the main enemies of museums. It is significant that the enemies are not antique finders and diggers, but those who create collections. The country has regulations that prevent the creation of a collection. The legislation allowed the collector only a few months to photograph, describe and submit each coin for approval. In order to register a collection, a number of formalities had to be completed, which a person inexperienced in bureaucracy cannot complete in a short time. If anyone could do it, there would be little point. These rules make the collection dead. But the collection must change, it must constantly improve.”

The big things go unnoticed

According to I. Zilbers, the state is currently targeting those who find, exchange, buy and sell individual coins, but do not look at the big things that show up in international auctions: “In the autumn of 1944, an unscrupulous museum employee processed the numismatic collection at the Maritime Museum for evacuation. Instead of performing his task in good faith, he removed valuable, large-scale gold denominations from the collection. All the golden ducats were taken. It was found only when the museum collection returned to Riga in 1946. Suddenly, in the 1980s, the 35-gram gold coin stolen in 1944 from the collection of the Riga Maritime Museum appeared at an antiques auction in Switzerland. There was another case with the 1557 Riga master Fürstenberg's thaler. Fifteen years ago, this thaler, stolen from the current Riga History and Navigation Museum in 1944, showed up in Germany. At that time, the director of the museum Klāra Radziņa convened a meeting on the fact of selling this thaler, but unfortunately decided not to continue the process and not to involve Interpol, because there would be tough lawyers from Germany. Stolen coins travel around the world, and it is in this direction that our officials should have been really active, but they ignore it.

The collections of practically all museums, both during interwar Latvia and before, were created from the collections made by collectors, buying them or receiving them as gifts. Now the state is simply trying to take them away. According to Armands Vijups, the leading researcher of the Ventspils Museum, since the law came into force, nothing significant has been brought to the museum voluntarily and they have neither the money nor the right to repurchase the so-called state-owned property. He forgot to say that his museum has the largest collection of coins from Kurzeme, which was once bought by the mayor of Ventspils Aivars Lembergs from the collector Gundars Gerbaševskis and gifted to the museum.”