Where is Romania's gold?

Chapter

1916 – 1917

The decision

12 December 1916

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12–14 December, Iași

Arrival

21 December, Moscow

In the autumn of 1916 the Central Powers overran Muntenia and Dobruja; the government, the court and the National Bank – then an entirely private bank – withdrew to Iași. The Bank's metal stock stood in the vaults: 93.4 tons of gold, 91 in historic coin belonging to banks, firms and private holders, 2.4 in ingots belonging to the Bank itself.

London was discussed and dropped: German submarines made the sea route too dangerous, and Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu – against the advice of the banker Mauriciu Blank – answered that Russia would feel offended if the gold went to England. Moscow, beside the Tsar's own treasure in the Kremlin, became the plan; on 11 December the Russian minister in Iași, General Mossoloff, pledged the imperial government's guarantee.

Between 12 and 14 December, 1,738 boxes went into 17 wagons at Iași station: gold coin and ingots worth 314,580,456.84 lei, mostly German marks and Austrian crowns – plus two boxes of Queen Marie's jewels, worth 7 million. The train left at once and reached Moscow on 21 December; the inventory of January–February 1917 ended in the final protocol of 16 February, the boxes sealed, the Bank keeping a right of inspection.

Russia would feel offended if we sent it to England.

Ion I. C. Brătianu, December 1916 (reported)

Meanwhile In the Second World War the Bank's valuables stayed home – hidden in a cave near Tismana, and recovered safely.

Chapter

1917

The decision

18 July 1917, Titulescu

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23–27 July, Iași

Arrival

3 August, Moscow

By the summer of 1917 the Tsar had fallen but the Moldavian front still held – barely. On 18 July, on the proposal of Finance Minister Nicolae Titulescu, the Council of Ministers ordered a second evacuation: not just the Bank's remainder but the country's memory – the Romanian Academy's archives, Dacian jewels, the voivodes' jewels, thousands of paintings, fourteenth-century icons, monastery manuscripts.

Loading ran from 23 to 27 July at Iași; the train left on the evening of the 27th with 24 wagons – three for the National Bank, declared at 1,594,836,721.09 lei, twenty-one for the CEC savings bank, 1,661 boxes holding some 7.5 billion. It reached Moscow on 3 August, the Bank's share into the Kremlin beside the first transport, the CEC's into the Loan and Deposits House.

With that, the whole of the country's movable wealth sat in Moscow: two trains, 41 wagons, the gold, the jewels, the archives, the paintings. The receipts were protocols between allies; within months there would be no allied government left to honor them.

Meanwhile Twenty gendarmes in civilian clothes left Iași for Moscow that November to guard the gold; the Bolsheviks never let them near it.

Chapter

1918 – 2008

The breach

26 January 1918

Obor 1935

1,443 crates, no gold

The 1956 show

39,320 pieces

On 20 January 1918 Romanian troops crossed the Prut at the request of the Sfatul Țării; six days later Leon Trotsky severed diplomatic relations and declared the Moscow funds untouchable for the Romanian oligarchy – the Soviet state would keep them for the Romanian people. The keys to the vaults passed from the French consul to Denmark, then Norway; by September 1918 the last Romanians had left Moscow.

What came back came in crumbs. On the evening of 16 June 1935, seventeen wagons with 1,443 crates reached Obor station in Bucharest – archives, paintings, church objects – and the receipt of 28 June stated plainly that no gold, jewelry or valuables were among them. In June 1956 Moscow announced another return: the Pietroasele treasure, 120 Grigorescus, icons and tapestries, 39,320 pieces shown that August – but never the 93.4 tons, which communist papers pretended had come home too.

The strangest return was the smallest. In 1994, asked for proof of good faith, Moscow sent Bucharest twelve gold coins from the first crate of the first train – France and Belgium, 1854 to 1909, 77.09 grams in all. Nobody would accept them for fourteen years; on 6 March 2008 the numismatist Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu certified them authentic and signed. Twelve coins out of 93.4 tons.

The Romanian funds deposited in Moscow are untouchable for the Romanian oligarchy. The Soviet government takes responsibility for keeping these funds and delivering them into the hands of the Romanian people.

Leon Trotsky, 26 January 1918

Meanwhile Dimitrie Cantemir's remains came home in 1936 with a few minor archives – the only return of that decade.

Chapter

2003 – 2024

The commission

5 meetings through 2019

The 2023 value

about €15 billion

The EP resolution

14 March 2024

The 2003 friendship treaty refused to touch the treasure; instead the two presidents set up a historians' commission, co-chaired by Ioan Scurtu and Alexandr Ciubarian. It met five times through 2019 – fifteen years, five sittings – and returned small archive lots; the gold, the art and the valuables stayed in Russia, worth about €15 billion in 2023 money, history aside.

On 14 March 2024 the European Parliament – procedure 2024/2605(RSP) – urged Russia to return the remainder in full: 91.5 tons of fine gold by its count, plus everything else the protocols itemized. Moscow's 1994 answer still stands on the record: for Russia, the issue no longer exists.

So where is Romania's gold? What can be visited sits in Bucharest – the Pietroasele treasure, the Grigorescus, the icons, the twelve coins of 2008. The 93.4 tons – 91 in coin, 2.4 in ingots – sit in Russia, sealed by a century of refusals. The protocols promised return, and their receipts are still open.

Meanwhile Brezhnev's 1965 answer: the gold went to Perm, Omsk, Saratov and Kazan in 1918 – and the file was closed.