In August 2012, several mass media discussed the glass superstructure on the roof of the General Staff building. The State Hermitage Museum has been overwhelmed with questions concerning its origin and future.

 Work on restoring the General Staff building and turning it into a museum is a good example of the correlation between different structures. The State Hermitage Museum maintains constant oversight of the progress of the work. Many problems arise, and all of them are resolved in the process of the work without hysterics.

As part of the second stage of the work, due to the imperfection of construction materials and the natural divergence between virtual maps and reality there has been an increase in the permitted number of skylights. The State Hermitage Museum noted this at an early stage.

At present, several experiments are being carried out and a working timetable has been drawn up for changing the angle of the slope of the skylights. We wish to note that the historical level was not exceeded in the first stage. The existing covers are of the original historical sizes.

We wish to thank the city's residents for following the work so closely. We believe that these attentive people have no grounds to be disgruntled.

Over many years the State Hermitage Museum has steadily and consistently argued for maintaining and preserving St. Petersburg's skyline throughout the implementation of any city projects, and remains faithful to its position in the current situation.

М.B. Piotrovsky