The starting price at the auction was $550,000.
At a Heritage auction in the United States, an unknown buyer purchased a Nobel Medal from Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta. The auction started at $550,000.
Muratov, speaking at the beginning of the auction, said that the proceeds from the auction sale would be transferred to UNICEF, which promised to give the money to countries "where there are refugees and children of refugees from Ukraine: in Poland, Russia, Germany, Moldova, Slovenia, Hungary".
The bidding was broadcast at the New York Times Media Center on the Heritage auction house's website. At first the bid for Muratov's Nobel medal was raised to $700 thousand, then the amount rose to several million literally within minutes. When the bid reached $16.6 million, an offer of $103.5 million was made by phone.
Russian journalist Dmitri Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, along with American-Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, for their "efforts to defend freedom of expression, a prerequisite for democracy and lasting peace".