Russian Literature: The Pushkin Job

From Russia with Greed: The Political Mystery Behind the Great Book Heist 

Across Europe, a shadow fell upon the continent's most revered libraries. In a crime wave that unfolded from 2022 to 2023, a sophisticated operation targeted the quiet halls of learning. Thieves executed a series of audacious heists, removing up to 170 priceless first printings of classic Russian literature. The total value of the pilfered material exceeded £2.5 million. The operation's scale and precision left investigators with a chilling question. Were they chasing opportunistic criminals, or were they confronting a state-sponsored campaign to reclaim cultural treasures? The trail of empty shelves stretched from Helsinki to Paris, leaving a legacy of loss and a complex geopolitical mystery. 

An Ominous Request in Warsaw 

On October 16, 2023, a man and a woman entered Warsaw's university library. They presented reading cards under the names Marko Oravec and Sylvena Hildegard. The pair requested eight rare volumes from the institution's secure 19th-century collection. These were not ordinary books, but rather treasured editions of works by the titans of Russia's literary canon, Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol. The couple examined the age-yellowed pages with intense focus. They took photographs using their mobile phones and carefully measured the dimensions of each volume, their actions a prelude to the crime to come. 

The Vanishing Act 

The pair's meticulous study soon gave way to subterfuge. They announced they were stepping out for a smoke but never reappeared. Alerted by their prolonged absence, library invigilators checked the desk where they had been working. Five of the eight volumes were missing. Among the missing volumes was a Pushkin story in verse titled The Robber Brothers, a detail that felt like a deliberate and mocking message from the thieves. The brazen theft in the heart of the library was only the beginning of a much larger and more disturbing discovery for the institution. 

A Deeper Deception 

A subsequent, more thorough audit of the institution's holdings revealed a far greater loss. Over the preceding weeks and months, another 74 tomes of Russian writing had been taken. The thieves operated with stealth and cunning. They had replaced the priceless originals with what a local publication later called convincing replicas. This tactic allowed them to operate undetected for an extended period. The building's security system posed no obstacle. While most modern books had magnetic anti-theft strips, experts had advised against fitting them to older volumes, fearing the adhesive would damage the fragile paper. The thieves simply walked out. 

A Wound to National Heritage 

News of the theft sent shockwaves across Poland. A one-time diplomat named Hieronim Grala, who was assisting the university, described the act as being akin to "taking out the crown jewels.” The university library in Warsaw, which was founded in 1817 while Poland was under the rule of a Russian tsar, holds a collection deeply woven into the nation's complex history. Chief prosecutor Bartosz Jandy, who led the investigation, acknowledged the books' link to Russia's imperial past. He insisted, however, that they remained an inseparable part of Poland's own cultural heritage, given to the nation at significant historical moments. 

A Continent-Wide Crime Spree 

The incident in Warsaw was not a standalone crime. It marked a late stage in an unprecedented spree of literary crime. This criminal enterprise wound its way across Europe from early 2022 until the winter of 2023. Collections in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, France, Switzerland, and Germany all fell victim. The targets were remarkably consistent: scarce volumes of works from Russian literature. Laura Bellen, an Estonian public prosecutor, confirmed the sheer novelty of the case. She stated that law enforcement had never handled a crime of such scale and sophistication. Libraries, she noted, were simply not accustomed to viewing themselves as being targets for high-level criminal activity. 

A Consistent Modus Operandi 

The thieves' methods remained largely the same in each city they struck. A pair of individuals used false IDs to request the targeted books from closed stacks. If librarians watched them too closely, one created a distraction as the other slipped away with the valuable items. The pretexts they used were adapted to suit their location. For example, in Warsaw they claimed to be Slovakian researchers. In Helsinki, they pretended they were academics from Poland. Riga saw them pretend to be Ukrainian refugees, while in the French capital, they became Bulgarian students studying democracy in 19th-century Russian literature. 

The First Breakthrough 

Authorities began to connect the dots already in early 2022. By December of that year, Latvian police made a crucial arrest. They apprehended a man after his DNA was discovered on volumes left behind at the scene of a theft in the Latvian capital eight months prior. The suspect, a Georgian national who was 46 years old named Beqa Tsirekidze, had a past dealing in antiques and a previous conviction for theft. His possessions included a startling assortment of library cards for institutions from across Europe, along with book restoration tools. A match for his DNA was also found from a theft in the adjacent nation of Estonia, where officials promptly extradited him to stand trial. 

A Wall of Silence 

The arrest of Beqa Tsirekidze, however, did not end the mystery. While standing trial twice in Estonia during the first part of 2024, Tsirekidze remained resolutely tight-lipped. He refused to say if he had been hired to take the volumes. This silence was significant, as cooperation could have led to a more lenient sentence. He ultimately received a combined prison sentence of three-and-a-half years. Prosecutor Laura Bellen expressed her belief that some other force had compelled Tsirekidze to commit the thefts. But without a confession, investigators had no hard evidence to prove who that might be. 

Forging a European Alliance 

Solving this mystery that stretched across the continent required a unified European effort. The EU's agency for combating crime, Eurojust, in March 2024 established a collaborative investigative unit. The unit brought together police forces from Switzerland, Poland, Lithuania, and France. An invitation was also extended to Georgia, an operational partner country of the agency, to join the task force. This collaboration marked a critical step in pooling intelligence and coordinating efforts to dismantle the network responsible for the widespread thefts. The international team faced a daunting and complex challenge, with leads scattered across multiple jurisdictions and legal systems. 

Competing Theories Emerge 

Despite their unified determination, the countries involved did not necessarily share the same working theories. Investigators debated whether a single criminal organisation had masterminded all the thefts, while another possibility suggested that rival gangs were vying for the identical valuable books. Looming over the entire investigation was the unsettling timing of the crimes. The heists began a mere sixty days after Vladimir Putin launched the comprehensive assault on Ukraine. His speech announcing the invasion had heavily invoked Russia's cultural and historical traditions. This context raised a deeply troubling question for European authorities. 

A State-Sponsored Operation? 

The timing fuelled speculation about the perpetrators' motives. Was this simply a band of low-level opportunists exploiting lax security in venerable institutions? Or, were investigators facing something more significant and sinister? The possibility of a Russian state-backed campaign to reclaim cultural artefacts could not be dismissed. As the relationship between the EU and Russia had worsened significantly, the idea of a covert cultural repatriation project seemed increasingly plausible. Poland's chief prosecutor Bartosz Jandy stated his firm opinion that it was impossible for a band of criminals to organise this without state involvement. 

The Poet at the Centre 

Alexander Pushkin's writing was the connecting thread in every theft. Within Russia, Pushkin is seen as a pivotal cultural icon, a writer whose legacy has been embraced by vastly different political regimes for the last two hundred years. His politically ambiguous writings allowed for this. Andrew Kahn, who is a Russian literature professor at Oxford University, called Pushkin a devoted patriot and a supporter of the monarchy. Yet, rebellion also flowed through his work. In his youth, he composed a poem celebrating regicide and had personal friendships with key figures in the unsuccessful 1825 rebellion against the empire. 

A Tool of the State 

This ambiguity has made Pushkin a powerful symbol. During 1937, Stalin commemorated the 100th anniversary of the poet's death with grand commemorative events, a strategic effort to promote a figure of unity for the diverse empire. In modern times, the modern Russian government has shifted focus to his more nationalistic writings. He supported the brutal quashing of the 1830-31 November revolt by Poles, Lithuanians, and others. During November of 2022, a video was released by Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, where he recited a Pushkin poem that called for Slavic peoples to merge "into the Russian sea". The message was unmistakable. 

Propaganda and War Crimes 

When Russian soldiers moved into Ukraine in 2022, they erected signs bearing Pushkin's likeness in captured towns. For many Ukrainians who were raised with Russian culture, this veneration now serves as a cover for war crimes. The Ukrainian writer Oleksandr Mykhed noted the world's sentimentality regarding Russia's significant cultural legacy. He argued this makes it simple for Russian people to commit atrocities, ask for forgiveness, before repeating the cycle, all while claiming their national soul is simply a mystery. The weaponisation of culture had become a key feature of the ongoing conflict, with Pushkin at its very centre. 

The Simplicity of the Crime 

A surprising element of the criminal spree was the simplicity of many incidents. The initial incident in Tallinn barely deserved to be called a "heist". Between late March and early April of 2022, a man named Beqa Tsirekidze simply borrowed ten scarce volumes, including a valuable Pushkin edition, and never returned them. In Riga, he and a partner ordered priceless books to an unsupervised reading room. They located a secluded spot, removed the security labels, concealed the volumes beneath their clothing, and left. The vulnerability of these priceless collections was laid bare by such simple, low-tech methods. 

The Myth of Quality Forgeries 

Experts also cast doubt on the supposedly convincing nature of the forgeries that were left. A premier expert on forged printed material, Nick Wilding, doubted that description. He argued that the replacement books were amateurish. Photos showed a glaring difference between the bright white paper of a copied title leaf and the book's darkened interior pages. Wilding believes the thieves had simply affixed a replica title page inside a much less valuable book from that era. In one Estonian library, they simply inserted pages taken from German books from the 19th century inside the authentic covers. The forgeries were not meant to fool experts, only to delay discovery by overworked librarians. 

A Librarian's Prescient Warning 

In Paris, Aglaé Achechova, who manages the collection of Russian works at Paris's library for languages and civilisations, known as Bulac, watched the news with growing alarm. Previously a curator for the museum dedicated to Pushkin's memory in St. Petersburg, she felt certain the theft had been a contracted job. She believed an affluent collector had employed the thieves. She sent an email to her French counterparts in July of 2023, cautioning them that their own holdings could be the next target. She even attached a list of the most valuable Pushkin volumes held by Bulac, unknowingly creating a potential shopping list for the perpetrators. 

The Botched Paris Heist 

Achechova did not need to wait very long. A quarter of a year later, a pair of men, identifying themselves as Bulgarian citizens, signed up at the Bulac library and requested the exact titles from her list. In a departure from other institutions, however, they found themselves under the constant watch of staff. The library's management got in touch with the police in Paris that evening. But before law enforcement could intervene, the criminals acted. They broke a window overnight to enter the reading room, but they found that the library's most precious volumes were secured. They fled with only worthless pamphlets, leaving behind bloodstains from injuries sustained during the break-in—a crucial forensic gift for detectives. 

A Confession in Tbilisi 

The investigation gained new momentum with the arrest of several Georgian nationals. During an interrogation in Tbilisi, a suspect in custody admitted her involvement. Her name was Ana Gogoladze, and she confirmed she was one of the two people who operated in Warsaw. She told a story of personal desperation. Her estranged husband, Mate Tsirekidze—who was the son of the convicted Beqa Tsirekidze—had contacted her with a strange proposition. He asked her to join him in Poland for the purpose of stealing scarce books. Since she was raising their child alone and, driven by a need for funds, she reluctantly consented. Her testimony offered a first-hand look inside the operation. 

A Tale of Double-Cross 

Gogoladze's account, however, only deepened the mystery. She claimed she and her husband had taken just five volumes in Warsaw, leaving the disappearance of the 74 other volumes unexplained. More bizarrely, when they returned to Tbilisi, her husband's sister returned the five volumes, claiming they were valueless forgeries planted by another party. Gogoladze received no handsome reward, only repayment for her costs related to travel. This crushing blow suggested a chaotic free-for-all, with competing gangs potentially swapping fakes for fakes in a dizzying display of double-crossing. 

The Mastermind in the Shadows 

While foot soldiers like Gogoladze were being arrested, investigators hunted for the operation's leaders. Their attention soon focused on a 50-year-old Georgian named Mikheil Zamtaradze, apprehended in November 2023 at the airport in Brussels. At his trial in Lithuania, he faced charges for the theft of 17 volumes valued at over €600,000. He presented himself as someone who acted alone who had committed an unplanned crime. But court evidence painted a very different picture. Information from his phone's location services showed him jetting across Europe, a remarkable travel schedule for a man who said he was jobless and receiving state assistance. 

The Digital Trail 

Court evidence revealed Zamtaradze as a central coordinator. Hotel records and security camera video proved he frequently lodged in the identical hotels as other Georgian individuals he professed that he had not seen for years. Communications recovered from his device revealed him directing a former army comrade, Robert Tsaturov, in a commanding and dismissive tone. In one highly incriminating conversation, captured by a library's CCTV camera, Zamtaradze instructed Tsaturov on how to exchange a real book for a fake. He wrote to act cool, stressing that "The most important thing is the discreet exchange, everything else is irrelevant." 

A Russian Buyer Named 'Maxim' 

Under questioning, Zamtaradze claimed his orders came from a collector from Russia. He said an unexpected phone call came from a contact named "Maxim" stored in his phone's contacts. This man showed an interest in acquiring old Pushkin books. One week after Zamtaradze sent images of the library's most precious Pushkin editions held by the library in the Lithuanian capital, he received 12 high-quality forgeries on a bus from Minsk. He went inside the library, replaced the authentic volumes with the replicas, and sent them back on another coach. He said he was paid the equivalent of $30,000 in cryptocurrency in return. The story, though convenient, provided investigators with their first link to a potential buyer. 

Following the Money 

Investigators tried to identify "Maxim". Zamtaradze identified his buyer fully as "Maxim Tsitrin," but no such person is a known figure in Russia's market for scarce books. There is, though, a bookseller from Russia, Maxim Tsipris, director of a Moscow bookstore. In a past interview, Tsipris called editions published during an author's lifetime the most compelling stock. He failed to exercise his opportunity to respond to allegations outlined in a message sent by email. Zamtaradze's phone history also showed searches for Litfund, a prominent auction house in Russia whose director, Sergey Burmistrov, has impressive contacts inside Russia's culture ministry. 

An Auction of Stolen Goods? 

Warsaw librarians believe Litfund auctioned Pushkin volumes recently taken from their collection just months after the books were taken. Verifying this is difficult, as details about these suspicious auction lots were removed online. But an archived snapshot of a December 2022 auction catalogue shows Litfund sold an exceptionally scarce edition of Pushkin's poetry that displayed a stamp from Warsaw's University Library for £107,000. Another screenshot from an April 2023 sale shows a second stamped Pushkin edition sold for £23,000. Burmistrov denied that Litfund sells books with library stamps, but when presented with these allegations in a follow-up email, he did not reply. 

Defiance from Moscow 

The seeming reluctance of Russian officials and private firms like Litfund to assist the European inquiry suggests that they are, at a minimum, untroubled by the situation. From the roughly 170 books that disappeared, not one original has been found. In a Russian magazine article, Burmistrov dismissed the allegations. He asserted that libraries in Europe failed to safeguard these important literary items as diligently as Russian institutions do. He appeared to suggest that the fact criminals could so easily acquire them was primarily, in the first place, evidence of European inadequacy and stemmed from the political climate. 

A Legacy in Limbo 

After fourteen months of investigation, the full magnitude of the criminal enterprise was still expanding. Officials at the Dutch National Library finally reported the theft of six rare Pushkin volumes from its collection. The sense among investigators was not of closing in on a central figure, but of an ever-growing criminal enterprise. Jandy, the prosecutor in Poland, expressed pessimism about the books' return. He noted that recovery would require Russian cooperation, an impossibility in the current near-war climate. The stolen treasures of Russian literary works remain missing, caught in a web of crime, culture, and conflict.