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Original Story from Ukrainian Novyy Kanal Television
Published by BBC NEWS | Monitoring | Media reports |
Saturday, 12 October, 2002
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A giant exhibition of art and antiques accumulated in mysterious
circumstances by a private collector has recently gone on tour in Ukraine -
almost a decade after its owner died in obscurity.
Oleksandr Ilyin, who died in 1993, led a reclusive and apparently uneventful
life in the provincial Ukrainian town of Kyrovohrad.
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Mr Ilyin amassed 74,000 valuable artefacts
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He earned a meagre salary as an electrician, went round in shabby overalls,
had no family and never socialised.
But the enormous collection he assembled in secret would put to shame many a
museum around the world, Ukrainian Novyy Kanal television says.
Antique furniture, ancient archaeological artefacts, 17th century jewellery,
paintings, statues, icons and books - a total of 74,000 items packed the
humble electrician's two-storey house to the rafters.
Nobody knows exactly how much the collection is worth, but the figure
certainly runs into millions.
The treasure
After Mr Ilyin's death his hoard came into the possession of the Kyrovohrad
museum, which took six months to take stock of its windfall.
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Portrait of the collector as a young man
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The collection is currently on display in the city of Dnipropetrovsk.
It includes one of the few surviving copies of the Ostrog Bible, the first
full Slavonic translation of the scriptures printed in Ukraine in 1581.
Another book, on Byzantine enamels, was already worth a fortune when it was
first published in 1892, and is now valued at $2m (£1.3m).
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Also on display is a precious drinking vessel made in the 17th century by
the famous Ukrainian goldsmith Ivan Ravych as a gift to Peter the Great.
"Estimates putting the value of the collection at $40bn are greatly
exaggerated, but its unique nature is beyond any doubt," the Kyrovohrad
museum's director told Ukrainian Inter TV.
The keeper
Some of Mr Ilyin's neighbours suspected there was more to him than met the
eye, and in art collecting circles he was regarded as something of an
authority.
But how he acquired his treasure is still a mystery.
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Created for Peter the Great
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Some say he was a descendant of a noble Russian family, the
Rimsky-Korsakovs, and could have inherited part of the collection from his
mother.
Others suggest he was a godfather of Soviet organised crime.
The most plausible explanation, however, is that Mr Ilyin was just taking
care of the collection - much of it apparently stolen from the Russian
Orthodox Church - for the Soviet secret service.
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Born in 1920, Ilyin was sentenced to three years for robbery in 1944.
But he was suddenly released after spending only four months in prison - the
kind of lenient treatment accorded to very few people in Stalin's Russia.
Mr Ilyin's diaries suggest he worked for Lavrenti Beria, the infamous chief
of the Soviet secret police, and frequently travelled throughout the
country.
His humble job was apparently a cover, which also gave him a chance to prowl
private homes in search of new pieces for his jealously guarded collection.
The Kyrovohrad museum director says some of the items were given to Ilyin -
who was a talented artisan - by unsuspecting art collectors and museums for
restoration. He kept the originals, returning finely crafted fakes instead.
From rags to riches
The museum in Kyrovohrad has recently published a catalogue of the Ilyin
collection.
But the pieces now on tour in Ukraine constitute only a fraction of the
whole.
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The museum, which went from rags to riches literally overnight, says the
collection is so big that it will take years to authenticate all the items.
More priceless treasures may yet turn up in the truckloads of antiques
brought from Mr Ilyin's home.
But one thing is already certain: the sleepy Ukrainian outback of Kyrovohrad
is now firmly on the cultural map of Europe.
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Was this icon stolen from the Orthodox Church?
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/not_in_website/syndication
/monitoring/media_reports/2321281.stm
Internet links:
Kyrovohrad Regional Scientific Library
#24, K Marx Street
Kirovohrad 25006, Ukraine
Hours: Monday -Saturday 10am-7pm
Tel/fax: 380-522-226579, Tel: 380-522-225814, 380-522-226506
e-mail: omh@library.kr.ua,
http://www.library.kr.ua, webmaster@library.kr.ua
Inter TV: http://www.podrobnosti.com.ua/
Ukrainian Novyy Kanal TV: http://www.novy.tv/
BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and
translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the
Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
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