Meeting of the organizing committee on the preparation and conduct of the Founding Conference of the Union of Museums in Russia

In December 2000, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation arranged an All-Russian meeting of workers in the country's museums. There it was decided to create a Union of Museums in Russia as a voluntary non-commercial body bringing together museums and museum associations in Russia that have the status of legal entities under the Law on the Museum Fund and Museums in Russia.

The chief purposes of the future Union are to further the interests of the museums in their activities directed towards the public benefit, drawing up standards for museum activities, elevating the social role of museums and developing the exchange of information between and about museums.

The latest meeting of the organizing committee, held in the State Hermitage on 19 September under its chairman, Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky, was devoted to the preparation and conduct of the founding congress of the Union of Museums in Russia. Representatives of 262 museums from 61 constituent territories of the Russian Federation have declared their intention to participate in the work of the congress. It is proposed that the congress will take place simultaneously with the All-Russian seminar?meeting for the directors of museums in Russia on "The Main Aspects of Planning Work and Managing a Museum in Present-Day Circumstances" to be held by the Ministry of Culture in the suburbs of St Petersburg on 25-28 October 2001.

State Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky during the press-conference

At the press-conference

At the press-conference