A Nobel Prize-winning journalist from Russia has sold a gold medal for the Nobel Prize to help Ukrainian children displaced by the war.
According to French media, Dmitry Moratov, editor-in-chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, bid for the Nobel medal in New York on Monday and the gold medal sold for 103.5 million.
According to the report, the bid was made by phone and the name of the person who bought the medal could not be revealed. The auction was held in New York.
There was a lot of excitement at the time of bidding, the bidders kept bidding more and more and thus the bid amount kept increasing. Moratov, who was present at the time, can also be seen in the auction video.
When the last bid came out, it was several million more than the previous one, which shocked the people in the hall, and so did Muratov.
“I really like you for that,” he told Media.
Muratov was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2021, along with Philippine journalist Maria Resa.
At the time, the award committee said “the honor is being given to protect freedom of expression.”
Muratov was one of the founders of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
His newspaper is the only Russian newspaper of the year that has criticized President Putin’s domestic and international role.
The newspaper shut down in March, just days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after Moscow imposed sanctions and other harsh legislation on critics of the Kremlin’s military campaign.
Moratov was also attacked during a train journey in April and a man threw a solution at him that burned his eyes.
Moratov was present at the bidding during the auction and also stayed online with UNICEF officials who are part of a program to help displaced children in Ukraine.
When Moratov was asked why he decided to donate only to UNICEF, he said: “The important thing for us is that this organization does not belong to any government, it can work above the government.” It has no borders.