Kremlin critic auctions off award: record proceeds for Muratov’s Nobel Prize medal

Kremlin critic Muratov has auctioned his Nobel Peace Prize medal for record proceeds of $103.4 million. The money is intended to benefit children who lost their homes because of the Ukraine war.

Russian journalist Dmitri Muratov’s Nobel Peace Prize medal achieved a record price of 103.5 million US dollars (around 98.5 million euros) at an auction in New York. A previously anonymous bidder secured the contract by telephone.

The proceeds will go to the aid program for refugee Ukrainian children run by the UN children’s fund UNICEF. Muratov told the AP news agency that he was particularly worried about children who had been orphaned because of the war. The auction should serve as an inspiration “so that people can auction off their valuable possessions to help Ukrainians”. Muratow had previously announced that he would also donate his Nobel Prize money, equivalent to more than 470,000 euros, to a good cause.

Previous record proceeds “only” at 4.67 million dollars

He received the award last year for his commitment to protecting freedom of expression. Muratov is a co-founder of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which is critical of the Kremlin. Its operations were suspended in March because the Russian government once again massively restricted the work of critical journalists after invading Ukraine. Since 2000, six journalists from “Novaya Gazeta” have been killed in connection with their work – among them in 2006 was the investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.

Never before has a Nobel Prize medal been auctioned for such a high sum as Muratov’s. The record was held by molecular biologist James Watson, who was honored in 1962 for his role in discovering the structure of DNA: his medal went under the hammer in 2014 for $4.76 million. The Nobel Peace Prize medal consists of 175 grams of gold – if it were melted down, it would be worth around 10,000 dollars.