In July 2023, reports appeared on the Internet that the auction “Treasures of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra” would soon be held in Paris, and posters for the event had already been posted in the French capital. We have verified the accuracy of these publications.

On July 12, 2023, the Tsargrad TV channel published on its social networks (“VKontakte", "Classmates", Telegram, "Zen") a note entitled "Treasures of the Lavra will go under the hammer. An auction of Orthodox shrines has been announced in Paris.” The text reported that the valuables from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra had already been exported abroad through the mediation of UNESCO and would soon be put up for auction in France. As confirmation, a photograph was attached to the posts, which supposedly showed a poster advertising a future auction in Paris. This photo was also shared on Telegram, for example, by the channels “Rita Ebzeeva"(140,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Sheikh Tamir" (152,000) and "Alexander Semchenko"(90,000). Host of “Soloviev Live” Sergei Karnaukhov in his channel (32,000 views) emphasized: “What’s typical is that anyone can get acquainted with this information on the official website of the auction.”

News of the Paris auction spread about two weeks after the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, announced an agreement allegedly reached between the Ukrainian authorities and UNESCO representatives and providing for the removal of Orthodox valuables from the territory of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. It was alleged that they would be transferred for temporary storage to European museums under the pretext of saving them from Russian missile attacks. The head of the SVR did not provide any evidence for his words. His statements refuted Minister of Culture of Ukraine Alexander Tkachenko, director of the national reserve "Kievo-Pechersk Lavra" Maxim Ostapenko and UNESCO press secretary Toma Muller, and for a month and a half no evidence has appeared that the relics of saints and other relics were actually transported to France, Italy, Germany and the Vatican.

The only evidence used by the authors of publications about the upcoming sale of items from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra is a photograph of a poster allegedly posted on the streets of Paris. Judging by this poster, the auction is organized by the Russian art department of the Osenat auction house, and it will take place on October 1. At the same time, there is no announcement about such an auction on the Osenat website, and the only auction of Russian art this year will pass September 24, although there really were earlier planned on October 1st.

Our colleagues from Reuters asked representatives of the auction house to comment on reports of the sale of valuables from the Kyiv monastery. “There will not be an auction like the one described in this photo,” Osenat said, calling the information about the upcoming auction “completely false.” Similar answer to your request received and the StopFake project.

"Nezavisimaya Gazeta" appealed for a comment directly to the head of the Russian art department of Osenat Sergei Volkov. He said that the auction was indeed originally planned for October 1, but statements about the impending sale of valuables from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra are “completely false and slanderous information.” Volkov separately noted that the photograph used as confirmation was unlikely to have been taken in France, since “it shows yellow traffic lights, which do not exist in the country.”

The suspicions of an Osenat employee were confirmed by Reuters fact checkers. They proved that the advertising stand with the poster for the upcoming auction never existed either in Paris or in any other French city - the basis of the viral image became stock image from freepik photo bank.

The earliest publication about auctions allegedly being prepared in France, which “Verified” was able to discover, is a post in the Telegram channel Zanoza (12,000 views), posted on July 12 at 13:11 Moscow time. “Tsargrad” and most of the more popular bloggers shared the news only in the evening of the same day.

Thus, reports about an auction planned for the fall at which relics from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra will be sold are untrue, and the only confirmation used by the distributors of this information is fabricated. Apparently, the purpose of creating the fake was to reinforce the narrative about the irresponsible attitude of the Ukrainian authorities towards Orthodox shrines, which is actively supported by Russian officials, state media and pro-Kremlin bloggers.

Cover photo: Portable Antiquities Scheme / Wikimedia Commons