The Nobel Peace Prize was auctioned to help Russian journalist Dmitry A. Muratov sell to anonymous buyers for $ 103.5 million on Monday night and break the record for the Nobel medal. rice field.
The proceeds of the auction will be sent to UNICEF to support Ukrainian children and their families exiled by Russia’s invasion of the country.
Muratov is the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper that stopped publishing in March in response to the Kremlin’s increasingly stringent newspaper laws. In an interview with the New York Times last month, he received the award last year from Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who sold medals to help Finnish civilian rescue after the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939. He said he was urged to auction. ..
“I hope this sets an example for other people like flash mobs, auctioning their valuable possessions and heirloom and helping refugees and Ukrainian refugees around the world,” Muratov said. I mentioned in. The stage before bidding begins.
Earlier records of the Nobel medal auction were $ 4.1 million ($ 4.76 million, auction house) for James Watson, who shared the discovery of the DNA double helix structure.
Heritage Auctions, which deals with the sale of Mr. Muratov’s medals, has sold five former Nobel Prizes, including one awarded to Watson co-discoverer Francis Crick. The medal sold for $ 2.27 million in 2013.
Josh Benesh, chief strategy officer at Heritage Auctions, said he would not bear the sale fee and was surprised at the final price. Bids were cruising primarily in increments of $ 100,000 or $ 200,000 when they surged from $ 16.6 million to $ 103.5 million. When an employee of Heritage Auctions, who was in charge of the phone, told him about it, gasping filled the room.
“I don’t think the object is important,” Venesh said of the 23-carat gold Nobel medal auctioned. “I think the object is a metaphor. It’s a symbol of something. It’s an opportunity to stand up and say,” This is a meaningful cause and the problem is that donations can start to be resolved. “
Mr. Muratov is considered the dean of Russia’s embarrassed independent newspaper, and Novaya Gazeta has been praised for investigative journalism and campaigns for children with rare illnesses and suffering families since its inception in 1993. rice field. His words at the auction resonated with some in the crowd.
Polina Buchak, a 24-year-old Ukrainian filmmaker and activist living in New York, said some of her family were refugees. She hopes the auction will encourage the New York community and people around the world not to give in to their efforts to help Ukraine.
“We hear silence from everyone around us,” she said. “Okay. They’re tired, but we’re tired. It’s in all human interests that this victory comes soon.”
