Tue 21 June 2022:
The Nobel Peace Prize, which Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov the Russian editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, auctioned off to raise money for Ukrainian child refugees, sold for $103.5 million on Monday night, smashing the previous record for a Nobel.
The gold medal was sold at Heritage Auctions’ sale in New York to an undisclosed phone bidder.
The auction was lively, with much of clapping and bidders encouraging one another to raise the total. Muratov was seen recording the bidding screen as well as those in the room.
Many in the room, including Muratov, were astonished when the final price came in, which was tens of millions of dollars higher than the prior offer.
“I was hoping that there was going to be an enormous amount of solidarity, but I was not expecting this to be such a huge amount,” Muratov said in an interview after bidding in the nearly 3-week auction ended on World Refugee Day.
Muratov, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government, was the cowinner of the prize with Maria Ressa of the Philippines last year.
All proceeds from the auction will benefit UNICEF’s humanitarian response to Ukraine’s displaced children.
Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper, which he cofounded following the fall of the Soviet Union, suspended operations in Russia in March after warnings from the state over its coverage of the war in Ukraine.
The following month, the prominent journalist was attacked on a train when someone threw oil-based paint mixed with acetone on him, causing his eyes to burn.
Speaking in a video released by Heritage Auctions in connection with the sale, Muratov said that winning the Nobel “gives you an opportunity to be heard”.
“The most important message today is for people to understand that there’s a war going on and we need to help people who are suffering the most,” he said.
Nearly 1,000 Nobel Prize winners have been honored for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and the advancement of peace since the prize’s foundation in 1901.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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