Drawings theft adds to art fears

MOSCOW - Russia has suffered its second major art theft in as many weeks with the plundering of thousands of drawings worth at least $4.5 million from the State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow.

The drawings were the work of the late Yakov Chernikhov, a leading artist and architect of the Soviet era who specialised in "constructivist" Socialist design.

The thieves emptied thousands of folders containing drawings, replacing them with worthless "dummy" sketches to delay the discovery of the robbery. About 80 per cent of the 2000-drawing collection was removed.

The heist comes a week after the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg revealed that 221 items worth $8.2 million had been stolen from its repository over six years. Three people, including the husband and son of a former Hermitage curator, have been arrested in connection with the crime.

The Hermitage incident shocked Russia's cultural elite, triggering calls for a radical overview of the way Moscow looks after and catalogues its cultural treasures.

Revelations that the State Archive has also been compromised look set to lead to a new bout of hand wringing.

- INDEPENDENT