In the course of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum 2024, AiF.RU found out in an exclusive interview with Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky how the country’s main museum is coping with the challenges of the new times.
7 satellites
AiF.RU: Mikhail Borisovich, we are living in difficult times, when the so-called collective West is seeking to cancel Russian culture. How is the Hermitage coping with the new challenges? How is work with colleagues from unfriendly countries being arranged in these difficult circumstances?
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Today they are cancelling not Russian culture, but culture altogether, and Russian culture in particular. That is a mistaken policy, however. It’s impossible to cancel Russian culture, not at all because it’s so good, but because it’s a part of world culture. That is a very important aspect. People cannot cancel Tchaikovsky, not because he’s good or Russian, but because for Europeans and for the whole world he is a part of their culture. So they will never cancel him.
As for collaboration, officially all ties have, sadly, been broken. In the West just now the “Soviet Union” has been restored, and at twice the size. Citizens are being told where to go, who to be friends with. People are literally getting taken off planes when they are flying to Russia. Still, again, as in the times of the USSR, personal contacts remain. Our colleagues are travelling here in secret, working in libraries and museums, sharing information. We were used to the Soviet system, and so we know how to adapt to the new conditions.
– At the same time in one interview you announced a “turn to the East” in the work of the Hermitage. What does that mean?
– We are not turning anywhere. We are a museum of world culture, and we have everything. Yet when people announce that “the country is turning to the East”, we say: “Certainly, if you want to go to the East, then in order to be there, in the East, you need to understand what the East is.” For example, there is a vogue for China with us now. It is important to understand that China is a civilization constructed on logographic characters, while we are a civilization built on individual letters – and that is a huge difference. Incidentally, we have now refurbished the permanent display of China, drawing some very important and interesting parallels with the main milestones in the history of our state. There is also an exhibition that we are holding in our Hermitage satellites that is devoted to China. It is called “The Five Symbols of Happiness in Chinese Culture”. Or take, for example, Oman, which this year is an official guest of the Economic Forum. There is a hall of an Omani museum in the Hermitage, and in just the same way they have a Hermitage hall over there.
– You mentioned the satellite museums, of which the Hermitage has seven in Russia. How is their work being arranged today?
– It’s very important that they are just that – satellites and not branches, independent entities within their own museum institutions. Although the programme for their exhibitions contains echoes of the Hermitage’s themes, they are at the same time separate and self-contained. Besides, in them we quite often try out various approaches, sometimes experimental ones. In that regard Kazan is highly creative – they have a lot of interaction of all sorts, multimedia elements, games for children – and what has been tested there then gets implemented in a more conservative manner in the Hermitage.
Was there a “Mona Lisa”?
– You recently held an exhibition of pictures conceivably painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Has the great master’s authorship been confirmed?
– The exhibition in question is a discussional one. I personally believe that there is a roughly 40% probability that Leonardo had a hand in those works. Today new technologies allow conservators to penetrate more deeply into the layers and to work out to whom this or that picture belongs, but no-one will give a 100% guarantee. It should still be checked out by the community of experts. Another thing is important – even when there is just a 50-50 confirmation of Leonardo’s authorship, a piece will still sell for a fantastic amount of money.
Here politics already starts to intrude a little bit. When a British supposed Mona Lisa is exhibited in Turin, that is seen as OK. When an exhibition featuring works conceivably by Leonardo appears in the Hermitage, we get a whole storm of dissatisfaction. The cry goes up: “It’s quite obvious that they don’t belong to him!” In other worlds, there you can put an “almost Mona Lisa” on show, but here we can’t.
– How are the museum sphere and museum visitors themselves changing with the advent of digital technologies?
– We are always looking for new ways of working. We have for example, a special laboratory where we think up how to use artificial intelligence so that it helps and supplements but does not interfere with an ordinary museum object.
Or take work with the younger generation. People are always telling us: “Young people, you need to gear things to young people…” But they are all different too! There is Generation Z, Alpha, Y – and they all have a different perception of new technologies and use them differently! They even talk differently. That is why we seek to produce a range of programmes that will be understandable to a range of people. At the same time, we have a lot of what is now termed “inclusion”. For example, guided tours in sign language.
Most importantly, though, our visitors have got better. They have travelled the world. I call such guests “people who have been to the Prado”. One can tell that they have seen the world; they display a lively interest, make use of guides and guidebooks. Incidentally, even Chinese tourists have changed for the better. There are now fewer crowds, fewer tourist groups; people come as couples, as families, with children. Personally I am delighted about that.
The original interview, given to Svetlana Zaitseva for AiF.RU, can be found here.
