N e w s

The display of Russian Museum of Ethnography is currently taking place in Long Beach, California. Today the dispaly's administration announced that one of the item was missing - a dagger from the personal collection of Alexander III. If fact, the dagger was stolen this Sunday.

According to Reuters, the missing dagger was a gift of a Bukhara emir to Alexander III in 1883. After the Revolution the dagger was given over to the Ethnography Museum in Saint Petersburg and in 1999 became part of the collection displayed at an exhibition in the liner hotel "Queen Mary" in Long Beach, California. The theft was commited on Sunday but until recently was kept secret because the security were trying to find the missing item on their own. It is of interest to note that the display window with the dagger was constantly under a camera supervision set on recording. The record is now under close examination of California police. All the items were insured and the Museum will get $50 thousand for the dagger. And the owners of "Queen Mary" have already promised $10 thousand for the returned rarity.

As told by the Ethnography Museum administration, the first to learn about the theft was their director Vladimir Grusman. The American coordinator of the display called him at 1.30 in the night and told the bad news. But he was not able to say which exactly dagger was missing. The problem was that presented at the dispaly called "The Empreror's Collection of Russian Ethnography Museum" were several Daghestan and three Bukhara daggers given at different times to Alexander III. According to the employee of the Museum press service Galina Luzhnikova, it is most probably one of the Bukhara daggers and they hope it will soon be found. Luzhnikova did not tell the name of the insurance company but said it was one of well-known Russian companies. The display on "Queen Mary" opened last July after being presented in France and Spain and will terminate on April 22 as planned. After the theft security measures at "Queen Mary" were intensified.

The the accident details will be conveyed at tomorrow's press conference. "Gazeta.ru" is going to report further development of the event.

Mikhail Kotov