The item, in the shape of the famous processed cheese Druzhba, or friendship, complete with bar code, was stolen from the arms of a giant statue of a Fox and a Crow on Jan. 30, local media reported.
The statue, located on Ulitsa Rustaveli, opposite the Karat factory that makes Druzhba cheese, represents an ancient Greek fable about a fox who cons a crow into dropping her cheese by flattering her. Instead of arguing, however, the two figures in the statue are portrayed in an embrace.
The statue was commissioned at a cost of $500,000 by the factory in 2005, Vechernaya Moskva reported.
A reward of 100,000 rubles, or about $4,000, had been offered for the return of the piece, but it was ultimately found not far from the statue.
"It looks like the kidnappers couldn't carry something so heavy and hid it in a large snowdrift," a source at the factory said, the newspaper reported.
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