The decoration of the journalist Dmitry Muratov reached a record number for that piece; the amount will go entirely to Ukrainian children
The Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov has managed to raise nearly one hundred million euros with the auction of the medal that accredits him as the Nobel Peace Prize 2021. The medal was sold on Monday in New York and raised the record amount of 103.5 million dollars (98.3 million euros), which will go entirely to Unicef to help Ukrainian children.
The bidding, which was conducted by the Heritage auction house, lasted 20 minutes, in which the price of the medal rose from $787,000 to $15 million, when suddenly an anonymous buyer reported by phone that he was paying $103.5 million. dollars, ending the sale.
It was going for 15 million when an anonymous buyer made the gigantic offer of 103.5 million dollars and the bid was closed
Although other medals won by Nobel laureates have been sold or auctioned in the past, none have ever reached even a tenth of that amount, and in fact the most expensive medal had sold for $4.76 million in 2014.
The Heritage house renounced charging the fees that are customary at auctions, so the entire amount will go to Unicef.
Muratov, founder and director of the last Russian dissident newspaper, ‘Novaya Gazeta’, founded in 1993 and now closed, was one of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates in 2021. He and Philippine journalist Maria Ressa were awarded for “his brave fight for freedom of expression and his efforts to defend freedom of opinion, an essential condition for democracy and peace.”
The journalist, invited to the auction, recalled that of the 16 million Ukrainian refugees, 40% are children, or that two thirds of Ukrainian children have had to leave their homes, something that, according to him, had never happened in a conflict in such a short time.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner gave the example of a Ukrainian boy who found himself in Russia and who asked him for money “to be able to recharge the phone with which to call his mother in Ukraine”, and asked the audience to put themselves for a moment in its place.
Muratov has been standing out in Russia for years as a tireless fighter for freedom of expression. The newspaper he runs has published articles on topics ranging “from corruption, police violence and illegal arrests to the use of Russian troops outside the country.” In the nearly 30 years of the newspaper’s existence, “six of its journalists were killed, including Anna Politkóvskaya”, whose death has been 15 years since.
Despite numerous threats, Muratov steadfastly defended the right of journalists to cover critical issues. “It even makes me laugh. I didn’t expect it at all. I saw a phone call from Norway, but I thought it was a mistake,” Muratov said upon receiving the Swedish medal.
In his words, “all I can say is that it is up to us to bear the weight of the award, but it is really up to Russian journalism as a whole, which they are now trying to suppress. We will try to help the informants who are being labeled as foreign agents and are rotting and those who are being expelled from the country.’ In the Kremlin, however, they have welcomed the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to the director of ‘Nóvaya Gazeta’.
Muratov is the third Russian to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Before him, it was imposed on academician Andrei Sakharov and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
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