The Nobel Peace Prize, auctioned off by Russian journalist Dmitry A. Muratov to help Ukrainian refugees, sold $ 103.5 million to an anonymous buyer on Monday night, erasing the Nobel medal record.
Proceeds from the auction will go to UNICEF to help Ukrainian children and their families displaced by Russia’s invasion.
Mr Muratov is editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which stopped publishing in March in response to the Kremlin’s increasingly draconian press laws. In an interview with The New York Times last month, he said he was inspired to auction off the prize he won last year from Danish physicist Nils Bohr, who sold his medal to help civilians in Finland after the Soviet invasion. country in 1939.
“We hope that this will serve as an example for other people as a flash mob, for other people to sell their valuables at auction, their heritage values to help refugees, Ukrainian refugees around the world,” said Mr. Muratov in a speech. from the stage before the start of the bidding.
The previous record for selling the Nobel medal at auction came in 2014, when the prize, which belonged to James Watson, who was involved in the discovery of the double-stranded DNA structure, sold for $ 4.1 million ($ 4.76 million). including the commission that goes to the auction house).
Heritage Auctions, which sold Mr Muratov’s medal, has sold five former Nobel Prizes, including one awarded to Watson’s co-founder Francis Crick. This medal sold for $ 2.27 million in 2013.
Josh Benes, chief strategic officer of Heritage Auctions, who will not take a commission on the sale, said he was struck by the final price. Bidding was mostly in steps of $ 100,000 or $ 200,000, when it suddenly rose from $ 16.6 million to $ 103.5 million. They sighed as they filled the room as a Heritage Auctions telephone worker handed over the figure.
“I don’t think the site matters,” Mr Benes said of the 23-carat Nobel gold medal put up for auction. “I think the object is a metaphor, it’s a symbol of something. This is the opportunity to stand up and say, “This is a cause that makes sense, and this is a problem that a donation can begin to solve.”
Mr Muratov is considered the doyen of Russia’s struggling independent press, and Novaya Gazeta has been praised since its founding in 1993 for its investigative journalism and campaigns for children with rare diseases and families in need. His words at the auction echoed through some of the crowd.
Polina Buchak, a 24-year-old Ukrainian filmmaker and activist living in New York, said some of her family members were refugees. She hopes the tender has encouraged the New York community and people around the world not to back down in their efforts to help Ukraine.
“We hear the silence from everyone around us,” she said. “We understand. They are tired, but so are we. It is in everyone’s interest for this victory to come soon.”
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