Controversy Surrounds Russian Art Critic’s $2 Billion Bequest to Putin

On February 14, local media outlets such as RBC reported that a Russian art critic, who left a will to bequeath works of art worth $2 billion to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has passed away.

The Russian Ministry of Culture announced that Nina Moleva, an author, art critic, and historian, died on February 11 at 98.

Moleva, who studied the works of Russian artists such as Ivan Nikitin and the history of art both within Russia and around the world to write more than 120 books, married Ely Bielutin, artist and art theorist, in 1955.

When Bielutin died in 2012, Moleva inherited his art collection, which included around 200 paintings and was estimated to be worth around $2 billion. In April 2013, she wrote a will to donate these works to Putin, the “representative of Russia.”

Initially, the Moleva couple wanted to donate these art pieces to Russia in the 1990s. Still, they could not do so due to a law stating that a country cannot inherit property from individuals or institutions.

It was known that the Moleva couple owned paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Diego Velazquez. Still, the Moskovskij Komsomolets (MK) pointed out that there is controversy over the authenticity of their collection.

MK reported that the Moleva couple tried to donate the works to the Pushkin Museum but were rejected for several years.

Victoria Markova, a curator at the Pushkin Museum, said, “The collection hardly includes any works by famous people,” and “It does not meet the standards of our museum.”

The media outlet stated, “Now the Russian Ministry of Culture needs to form a panel of experts to evaluate the value of this collection.”