He had carved his name on the Colosseum, now he wants to pay for the damage. But no one gives him the Iban!

Kafka said it, “The charters of ministries are the chains of today’s people.” Remember the tourist in Rome in June who was immortalized by a video spread on social media in which he carved “Ivan+Hayley 23” on the bricks of the Colosseum with keys? All the authorities mobilized over this defacement of the Flavian Amphitheater, and it was thanks to that video that the boy was tracked down and identified as a British tourist of Bulgarian descent, who had meanwhile repatriated.

Denouncing the incident by spreading the video (in the photo below, a frame) on his own Twitter profile was Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano, who promised zero tolerance: “I consider it extremely serious, undignified and a sign of great incivility that a tourist would scar one of the most famous places in the world, the Colosseum, to carve the name of his girlfriend. I hope that whoever carried out this act will be identified and sanctioned according to our laws.” The tourist in question risked at least 15 thousand euros in fines and imprisonment for up to five years, and after being discovered he also wrote a letter of apology to the city of Rome and on the advice of the Italian lawyers assisting him proposed a voluntary repentance asking to repay the price of the restoration caused by the damage he himself had caused.

Well, after the quantification of the damage in about a thousand euros, the contrite Ivan Danailov Dimitrov is still waiting for the Archaeological Park of Rome to communicate to him the iban on which to pay the sum. It seems unbelievable but this is what Italian bureaucracy is like and Il Messaggero reports on it.

The British citizen, 27, a fitness instructor in Bristol, in fact decided to pay the damages to obtain a suspended sentence but no one, after several reminders from Pm and Lawyers, has yet communicated him the bank details to make the payment. Heard by the Messenger, officials of the Archaeological Park let it be known that “tomorrow the manager of the Budget and Payments Office of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage will take action” to communicate the Iban on which to have the sum transferred. Even an executive!

But let us recapitulate the affair that already last June assumed the grotesque when Ivan wrote the public letter of apology addressed to the Mayor of Rome. After cheerfully pulling a set of keys out of his backpack and carving that message of love to his girlfriend, who was watching him with a small dog in tow, in fact, he went back across the Channel and only after the Carabinieri found him in London notifying him that he had been investigated for damage to cultural property did he write the letter of apology: “I admit with the deepest embarrassment that it was only as a result of what regrettably happened that I learned of the antiquity of the monument. Aware of the gravity of the act committed I wish with these lines to extend my most heartfelt and honest apologies to the Italians and to the whole world for the damage done to an asset that, in fact, is the heritage of all humanity.” He was essentially stating that he did not know the importance of the most visited monument in the world. But compared to the many unpunished vandals, however, he at least apologized and proposed to repay the damage, and at this point the ball is back in the Italian court, where, however, it is lost in the fray.

In order to obtain a suspended sentence, the tourist offered to repay the damage, and the Pm of Rome in charge of the proceedings agreed and delegated the Carabinieri of the Piazza Venezia command to “ascertain and communicate the extent of the damage.” The quantification was made directly by an official of the Colosseum Archaeological Park on June 26, who in the report he signed explains that to restore the scarred nineteenth-century brickwork would require two days of work by a high-level restorer, in addition to equipment rental and the purchase of materials, for a total of 965 euros (plus VAT).

But what is unbelievable is that after so much diligence (tracked down in England and had a signed report done on extent of damage in three days) the bank account in which to have the financial compensation arrive was not communicated. After more than three months and reminders from both the boy’s Italian lawyers and from the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office, which even instructed the First Group of the Rome Capital Police to “acquire the bank details of the Colosseum Archaeological Park.” Laconic is the comment of the defense lawyers who find it “absurd that the law imposes a condition for the granting of a suspended sentence and the public administration, in fact, prevents it from being carried out.”

He had carved his name on the Colosseum, now he wants to pay for the damage. But no one gives him the Iban!

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