The curator who died as a theft scandal was coming to light at the Hermitage Museum sold art to buy insulin, says her husband. “The husband admitted he and his wife had taken 53 objects since the early 1990s. Another person was arrested a few days later. Zavadskaya’s husband said they needed the cash to buy insulin for his wife, whose meager salary of $125 a month could not cover her medical needs. The family lived in a dilapidated apartment in the historic centre of the city.”