[MSN] Russia. female museum custodian fought bravely over a priceless silver ladle with a former security guard who made a reckless attempt to steal it from the State Hermitage Museum

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Thief Caught in the Act at Hermitage 
By Evgenia Ivanova

Staff Writer
 
A female museum custodian fought bravely over a priceless silver ladle with
a former security guard who made a reckless attempt to steal it from the
State Hermitage Museum, it emerged Monday.

The Russian Department of the museum - still reeling from the notorious
theft of nearly $5 million-worth of artifacts announced in late July - was
once again a target of theft it said in a statement on Friday, but this time
the would-be thief was caught red-handed.

The man was visiting "Russian Culture of First Half of Eighteenth Century"
on Friday when he broke the glass of one of the display cases and attempted
to steal the silver ladle. 

The man was later detained by the museum's security service after the
attempted smash-and-grab triggered a museum alarm. He was later handed to
the police, the museum's statement said. 

The Hermitage press-office declined to give further comment regarding the
case on Monday. 

But Major Igor Alexandrov, chief press officer of the state-run
Vnevedomstvennaya Okhrana, the organization that provides security service
to the museum, said that the robbery was prevented due to the bravery of a
female custodian.

"After the suspect broke the window using his knee and elbow and grabbed the
exhibit, she reacted immediately. Shouting 'Where are you putting it' and
'Give it back at once,' she ran after him and caught hold of the ladle's
end," he told the St. Petersburg Times on Monday. 

Alexandrov said that what lay behind the incident was unclear. He said that
according to the suspect, whose mental health is under investigation, he was
recently fired from a job as a guard and on Friday he was rejected for a
similar position. This might have triggered the incident, Alexandrov said.

"During the fight with the custodian, the suspect, who was, by the way,
quite large, kept on asking where the tsar's stamp was," he said.

Referring his comments to the Hermitage, Alexandrov added that the ladle
might have once been in the possession of the father of St. Petersburg's
founder Peter the Great. 

"The object is made of silver and gold, has a some kind of a bas-relief on
its handle and its bottom is decorated with Russia's emblem - a nice-looking
thing," he said, adding that the suspect declined to elaborate on which
"tsar's stamp" he was looking for. 

"Apparently he was searching for some kind of hallmark," Alexandrov said.

But there were other reasons the suspect, who has not been named, may have
wanted the ladle.

"One reason he told us was that he simply wanted to see whether the ladle
was as heavy as it looked - and also to test how good the Hermitage's
security was," Alexandrov said.

Museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky reportedly blamed the press for the
incident, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

"He suggested with so many articles written about how easily items were
stolen from the Hermitage, certain people are prompted to really try to
steal something," CBC reported Friday.
 
http://www.times.spb.ru/