Responding to the British Museum’s initiative to send one of the Parthenon Marbles statues to Russia on a loan, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the decision “was an affront to the Greek people”.

“The British stance according to which the Parthenon Marbles are immovable is no longer applicable,” Samaras said, noting that the argument had been contested in the past by the construction of Athens’ Acropolis Museum in response to British authorities’ claim that the Greeks’ have no acceptable venue for hosting the Marbles.

The premier concluded his statement by saying that, “the Parthenon and its sculptures were looted” and that the sculptures’ value was “inestimable”.

The sculpture of the Greek river god Ilissos, a reclining male figure, is to be displayed in Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg from Saturday until January 18 to celebrate the museum’s 250th anniversary.

Source: Kathimerini