The National Bank of Romania (BNR) is organizing, on Thursday, at the headquarters of its Sibiu branch, the exhibition "The Treasure of the National Bank of Romania Sent to Moscow and Unrecovered - a Claim More Than a Century Old," according to a press release.

The exhibition presents documents and images from the Romanian and Russian archives that reflect the unfolding of this issue over more than a century, namely: the conditions of the evacuation of the BNR's gold stock to Russia and its confiscation by the Bolsheviks, the consequences of the confiscation of the gold stock for the Romanian economy and the failure of the Romanian-Soviet post-war negotiations, as well as the two restitutions of Romanian historical and artistic values evacuated to Moscow (1935, 1956). The discussions between the leaders of the two communist parties in 1965 and the unfolding of the BNR treasure issue after 1990 are also presented. A copy of the precious file, known as "Moscow 1," will be presented to the public, along with a collection of gold coins from the BNR Museum's heritage, similar to those sent to Moscow.

Since November 2023, the Board of Directors of the National Bank of Romania has initiated a new approach to the issue of the Treasure in Moscow, in order to inform the international public opinion and decision-makers about the existence of a legal, valid and enforceable claim of Romania regarding the 91.5 tonnes of fine gold confiscated by the Bolshevik government from Russia 106 years ago.

The exhibition is part of a series of events that began in Krakow, Warsaw, Vienna, Bremen, Tel Aviv and continued this year in Brussels, Washington DC and Chisinau. The international information effort took its first concrete form on March 14, 2024, when the European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, adopted a resolution in which it invited "the Commission and the European External Action Service to include the return of the Romanian national treasure on the bilateral diplomatic agenda governing EU-Russia relations, once the regional context allows for the resumption of political dialogue between the parties."

This campaign began after 1990 with the republishing of documents kept at the BNR regarding the transport of the treasure to Moscow, during the First World War, in order to avoid its capture by the foreign armies that had occupied a large part of the country. AGERPRES (RO - author: George Banciulea, editor: Andreea Marinescu, En - author: Cristina Zaharia)