Kherson museum accuses Russians of stealing three Aivazovsky paintings

The Kherson Art Museum accused the Russian occupying army of having stolen three paintings of 19th-century Russian-Armenian painter Ivan Aivazovsky from its collection.

“One of the world’s greatest masters of marine art became the Russians’ obsessive target. They measured the value of other artists’ works ‘against Aivazovsky’ and stole his paintings from the museums of occupied cities. The same fate befell the Kherson Art Museum, from which the occupiers illegally took three works of the great master,” the museum’s Facebook page reads.

The museum claimed that the paintings in question were Aivazovsky’s “The Storm Subsides”, “View of Odesa on a Moonlit Night”, and “The Sea”.

The statement was posted on 29 July, which is Aivazovsky’s birthday.

On 11 November 2022, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry announced that its armed forces had regained control over the city of Kherson. Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry said that it had completed the transfer of its troops to the left bank of the Dnipro river, claiming “not a single piece of military equipment or weaponry has been left on the right bank”. The order to retreat was given by Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu. On paper, Kherson had been a “part of Russia” for 41 days.