Addressing the City and the World

We have done much to turn the Hermitage into a global museum. That is shown by the open storage facilities, the satellite centres in other cities.

The Hermitage is a world museum. Outside exhibitions are a continuation of its halls beyond St Petersburg. The showing of the “Scythians” in London is connected with the presentation of the “Treasures of the Tsars” in Amsterdam and with the “Revolution” in the Winter Palace. We are creating reasons for people to travel around the world.

A global museum does not divide the public into “ours” and “others”. It addresses itself to everyone. We plan exhibitions and events. For us it makes no difference where they will take place – in Kazan, Paris, London or St Petersburg.

Still, the stage has come when we need to turn from the world to the city. That has nothing to do with increasing international tension.

The Hermitage Days in Yekaterinburg, Omsk and Astana are becoming an event. It seems to me that in St Petersburg there is still not that awareness. The celebration here has been officially confirmed as a special occasion for the city, but there is no feeling as yet that people look forward to it, that they regard it as anything more than a series of new exhibitions.

On the Hermitage’s birthday, 7 December, there was music playing on Palace Square all day as is the tradition. The Hermitage “pours out” onto the square. We wanted to relay the music to the courtyard where people queue as well. Some visitors were delighted; others didn’t see why it was necessary. Queues for museums are special; they formed for the exhibitions of Serov, Aivazovsky… In them people chat, take pictures of themselves and put them on Instagram, read books. These are good queues. They should be part of the life of the museum and the city.

Looking to the city, the museum takes upon itself a large number of important functions. During the Hermitage Days, the main thing is the opening of permanent displays and exhibitions, but there are also other, no less meaningful, events.

Those included an evening of remembrance for Oleg Karavaichuk, someone closely connected with St Petersburg, who became a part of its culture. Not everyone who came to the Hermitage Theatre for the commemoration was a long-standing “fan” of the Hermitage, but they came to honour Karavaichuk’s memory.
The following day there was an evening of remembrance for Joseph Brodsky. Besides all his great merits, he was also a person who belonged to Petersburg culture. He was an emblematic figure in the city. This was the setting for the famous trial that became his moral victory. People came to Hermitage for the commemoration of Brodsky.

We held several press conferences telling about what museums give the city and society. That is often underestimated. Those who are involved in the process do appreciate it. Those looking in from outside cannot always see how much museums do. Right now, that is particularly important, because a huge gulf has formed between society and culture. Cultural institutions are coming under attack from all sides.

I have already had to explain repeatedly that the Hermitage is more than a museum. The exhibition devoted to the revolution is an example of that. We “muffled” the spirit of the museum in the Winter Palace, so that the building could “speak” about the past.

During the Hermitage Days the permanent display of carved gems opened in the hall that was intended for them. The Hermitage was born from cameos and intaglios, because Catherine the Great was fascinated with them. The display shows not only the stones and how they used to be kept, but also moulds, copies made of them. You can get an idea of how those related to the originals. There is a hint of the story behind the famous Gonzaga Cameo. Napoleon gave it to Josephine; she gave it to Alexander I. One of the three finest cameos in the world became the prototype for portraits of couples – Napoleon and his wives, Alexander I and his consort. A story about our history attracts people.

Some people often visit the museum; others more occasionally, when their interest is aroused.

The opening of the display of costumes at the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre is another example of how we are working with the collections, with the museum’s stores. From time to time voices are heard, saying that there is an awful lot in the museum stores and some should be given out… That was said in the 1920s and led to the selling-off of museum exhibits. I am constantly saying that there is a solution put forward by the Hermitage and accepted by the worldwide museum community – we need to build open-storage facilities.

In our new storage the costumes stand “in a crowd”. You cannot show them like that in the museum. Behind the wall are the rooms where the clothes are kept when they are not on the mannequins. They will replace one another, participating in a dynamic process. That attracts people interested in fashion and those who donate outfits to the Hermitage: Diana Vishneva, Anna Netrebko, Xenia Rappoport…

The Hermitage gives people food for the eye and the mind that no-one else can give. An exhibition of showcases like we have at Staraya Derevnya is something no other museum in the world can allow itself. Nobody has a comparable collection.

And alongside is the display of Central Asia: huge tents, remarkable weapons around, jewellery. The image is created through the combination of storage and display. Visitors like that. The storerooms have always been reserved for specialists. Our open stocks attract people with various interests, not just museum scholars.
The opening of the display of the Museum of the Guards in the General Staff building is a political event. It is an account of the Imperial Corps of Guards that perished almost entirely in the First World War and Civil War. Descendants of guardsmen came for the opening of a display that includes items donated by them and returned to Russia. There are weapons from Napoleonic times, the last portrait of Emperor Nicholas II made in his lifetime. During the Civil War, the standard of the Grenadier Regiment was given by its members to the British royal family on condition that it would be returned to Russia when the opportunity presented itself. The standard has returned; history is coming full circle.

A distinctive feature of the Hermitage is the memory of place. For the Guards that place is Palace Square. Exhibit number one in the Museum of the Guards is the Alexander Column, which the city has given over to the Hermitage.

The museum preserves the historical memory absorbed by the walls of the buildings on Palace Square. We recreate it in various forms, sometimes purely museum-oriented, sometimes not. All this comes together in the Hermitage Days.

https://spbvedomosti.ru/news/culture/obrashchayas_k_nbsp_gorodu_i_nbsp_miru/