Schliemann smuggled Priam's Treasure out of the Ottoman Empire and gave it to Berlin, the Red Army took it in 1945, and Moscow kept it secret for 50 years

On 31 May 1873 Heinrich Schliemann found a hoard of gold at Troy and called it Priam's Treasure. His Ottoman permit required the finds to be divided. He smuggled them to Greece. The Ottoman government sued him in Athens; he settled for 10,000 gold francs and paid more to the imperial museum to keep digging. In 1881 he gave his Trojan collection to the Royal Museums in Berlin, to be kept whole. In 1941 the best pieces went into a bank safe and then into the flak bunker by the Berlin Zoo. In 1945 the museum director, Wilhelm Unverzagt, handed the collection to a Soviet officer. The Soviet Control Commission called it partial reparation for Nazi damage. The Pushkin Museum received 260 items, mostly gold, and the Hermitage 414. From 1949 they were a secret "special collection." During the Cold War the Soviet government denied knowing where the treasure was, and scholars thought it lost. Experts examined it in Moscow in December 1994. The Pushkin Museum opened an exhibition on 15 April 1996. In 1998 the Duma declared the gold Russian state property, which Berlin's museums call contrary to international law. Berlin keeps the silver and ceramics.