Statement of the Union of Russian Museums

The Union of Russian Museums is overwhelmed by a tragedy that occurred at the Academician Igor Grabar All-Russian Art Scientific Restoration Center. Horrible fire not only caused an irreparable damage to the building and cultural valuables kept at the Center but also caused the deaths of two rescuers.

We are mourning together with relatives and friends of Alexander Dymchikov and Vyacheslav Shashin who died while performing their duty. Their names will be remembered by us and be part of the history of domestic museum affairs forever.

The tragic situation that our colleagues from the Academician Igor Grabar All-Russian Art Scientific Restoration Center found themselves in affects, without any exaggeration, all museums of our country. Each of us in our work is somehow connected with the activities of the Center and received professional help of its specialists concerning the restoration and expert evaluation of museum items.

Today the Grabar Center needs our help. Each of us is ready to help colleagues with anything that state and municipal museums can help each other: moral support, places in repositories, temporary placements for employees, performance of conservation works with museum items that were damaged in the fire. But, obviously, this is not enough.

We address the business circles of our country, the large corporations and their executives who for the last 20 years have been forming corporate and private art and historical-cultural collections – you can contribute to the rapid restoration of the Grabar Center, the recovery of the complete process of restoration and expert evaluation of both your and state cultural valuables!

It is our great hope that in this emergency situation the Government of the Russian Federation will find an opportunity to speed up all the approvals “under the appropriate procedure” and shortly ensure the prompt restoration of the Grabar Center.

Human lives and museum valuables impaired by the fire cannot be retrieved but there is a possibility and necessity that these days our colleagues in the Grabar Center feel the support and readiness for the actual assistance of the entire museum community of the country.

Mikhail Piotrovsky,
President of the Union of Russian Museums,
Director of the State Hermitage

22 July 2010