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PARIS: In April 2022, soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, two men arrived at the library of the University of Tartu, in Estonia’s second-largest city. They told the librarians they were Ukrainians fleeing war and asked to consult 19th-century first editions of works by Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s national poet, and Nikolai Gogol. Speaking Russian, they said they were an uncle and nephew researching censorship in czarist Russia so the nephew could apply for a US scholarship.Eager to help, the librarians obliged. They spent 10 days studying the books.
Four months later, during a routine annual inventory, the library discovered that eight books the men had consulted had disappeared, replaced with facsimiles of such high quality that only expert eyes could detect them. At first, it seemed like a one-off — bad luck at a provincial library. It wasn’t. Police are now probing what they believe is a vast, coordinated series of thefts of rare 19th-century Russian books — primarily first and early editions of Pushkin — from libraries across Europe.
Since 2022, more than 170 books valued at more than $2.6 million, according to Europol, have vanished from the National Library of Latvia in Riga; Vilnius University Library; the State Library of Berlin; the Bavarian State Library in Munich; the National Library of Finland in Helsinki; the National Library of France; university libraries in Paris and Lyon in France, and Geneva; and from the Czech Republic. The University of Warsaw library in Poland was hardest hit, with 78 books gone.
The books are worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars each. In most cases, the originals were replaced with high-quality copies that mimicked even their foxing — a sign of a sophisticated operation. The disappearance of so many books of the same ilk from so many countries in a relatively short period is unprecedented, experts said. The thefts have led libraries to boost security.
According to Europol, authorities have arrested nine people in connection to the thefts. Four were detained in Georgia in late April, along with more than 150 books. In Nov, French police placed three suspects into custody. Another man has been convicted in Estonia and a fifth suspect is in jail in Lithuania. A special French police unit dedicated to fighting cultural theft is overseeing the investigation in France and coordinating across Europe. Authorities paint a picture of a network of associates, some blood relatives, travelling across Europe by bus with library cards sometimes under assumed names to scout rare Russian books, make high-quality copies, then swap them for the originals, case files reveal. The probe has been dubbed “Operation Pushkin”.
Prices of books published during the lifetimes of the holy trinity of Russian romantic writers — Pushkin, Gogol and Mikhail Lermontov — have risen dramatically in the past 20 years, in line with the rise in wealth of Russian collectors. Western sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine prohibit dealers in the West from selling to residents of Russia, fuelling an existing shadow market for rare books. Europol said that some of the stolen books had already been sold by auction houses in Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia, “effectively making them irrecoverable”.
Four months later, during a routine annual inventory, the library discovered that eight books the men had consulted had disappeared, replaced with facsimiles of such high quality that only expert eyes could detect them. At first, it seemed like a one-off — bad luck at a provincial library. It wasn’t. Police are now probing what they believe is a vast, coordinated series of thefts of rare 19th-century Russian books — primarily first and early editions of Pushkin — from libraries across Europe.
Since 2022, more than 170 books valued at more than $2.6 million, according to Europol, have vanished from the National Library of Latvia in Riga; Vilnius University Library; the State Library of Berlin; the Bavarian State Library in Munich; the National Library of Finland in Helsinki; the National Library of France; university libraries in Paris and Lyon in France, and Geneva; and from the Czech Republic. The University of Warsaw library in Poland was hardest hit, with 78 books gone.
The books are worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars each. In most cases, the originals were replaced with high-quality copies that mimicked even their foxing — a sign of a sophisticated operation. The disappearance of so many books of the same ilk from so many countries in a relatively short period is unprecedented, experts said. The thefts have led libraries to boost security.
According to Europol, authorities have arrested nine people in connection to the thefts. Four were detained in Georgia in late April, along with more than 150 books. In Nov, French police placed three suspects into custody. Another man has been convicted in Estonia and a fifth suspect is in jail in Lithuania. A special French police unit dedicated to fighting cultural theft is overseeing the investigation in France and coordinating across Europe. Authorities paint a picture of a network of associates, some blood relatives, travelling across Europe by bus with library cards sometimes under assumed names to scout rare Russian books, make high-quality copies, then swap them for the originals, case files reveal. The probe has been dubbed “Operation Pushkin”.
Prices of books published during the lifetimes of the holy trinity of Russian romantic writers — Pushkin, Gogol and Mikhail Lermontov — have risen dramatically in the past 20 years, in line with the rise in wealth of Russian collectors. Western sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine prohibit dealers in the West from selling to residents of Russia, fuelling an existing shadow market for rare books. Europol said that some of the stolen books had already been sold by auction houses in Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia, “effectively making them irrecoverable”.
