Russian museums miss 50,000 items: police

Russian museums are missing some 50,000 valuables, after an extensive two-year revision sweeping over 80 per cent of Russia's 2,000 museums, the Interfax news agency reported quoting the police.

"As of today we have found lacking some 50,000 items of the museum fund," a representative of the interior ministry's criminal investigation department, Ilya Ryasnoi, said.

Though some of the missing items have possibly been stolen, others were misplaced while moving to new premises, or handed over to other museums without proper registration, Ryasnoi said.

Revision still continues in major museums such as the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg or Moscow's State Historical Museum, which store up to seven million items each, he added.