18 March 2010 the State Hermitage and the Creative Association of museum employees of Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad region held a Round Table entitled Museums’ friends today. Aspects of cooperation and further opportunities of development at the Hall of the Board of the State Hermitage.

The meeting was attended by 24 representatives from 16 museums of Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad region: E. Kalnitskaya, Director of the Peterhof reserve museum; S. Nekrasov, Head of the A. Pushkin All-Russian museum; E. Trufanov, Director of the Park Monrepo reserve museum; G. Zakrevskaya, Director of the Central Museum of Railroad Transport; employees of the State Russian Museum, Russian Ethnographic Museum, the Tsarskoye Selo reserve museum and other museums.

The meeting was opened by Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage, who spoke about the history of founding societies of Friends of the State Hermitage abroad and the Friends’ Club in Saint Petersburg. He also proposed to hold such meetings-discussions on a regular basis and arrange museum round tables concerning the aspects of cooperation with museums’ Friends annually.

Participants of the Round Table discussed topical matters such as:

Why a museum needs Friends and Friends need a museum today? Organization of special events for corporate and individual Friends of the museum.

Upon completion of discussions, within the framework of exchanging experience with museum colleagues, representatives of the Hermitage Friends’ Club invited all the participants of the Round Table to take part in the Friend’s program Hermitage Mosaics.

Members of the Hermitage Friends’ Club were offered various thematic tours over the museum’s permanents expositions and temporary exhibitions prepared by research associates of the State Hermitage. Friends were given a choice between 20 themes in Russian (including a tour for children with parents) and 3 themes in English. All tours are exclusive original programs prepared specially for this event.