Mikhail Piotrovsky’s interview on the Echo of Moscow radio station. Vitaly Dymarsky’s programme Editorial Board

V. Dymarsky: Good afternoon. This is the programme Editorial Board. My name is Vitaly Dymarsky and I am pleased to introduce today’s guest and conversation partner – the Director of the State Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky. Good afternoon, Mikhail Borisovich.

M. Piotrovsky: Good afternoon. Hello.

V. Dymarsky: You and I spoke several times during the pandemic. I am not sure, has the time now come to draw the balance of the pandemic, in the sense of reviewing how the Hermitage spent this year? And is it possible to say already that we are all, as far as the Hermitage is concerned – of course, certainly, the museum itself – coming out of this state and moving on either to the old, accustomed ways or else to some new updated state of existence.

M. Piotrovsky: I don’t believe that we shall ever emerge from the pandemic and we will be living in it more or less always now. Because that is how we live with flu epidemics, only this is somewhat more serious. I think that all the things that we created during the pandemic, thanks to it, will remain with us. Many of them for ever more.

Thanks to the pandemic, we have emerged from the chaos of visitors. We need to do everything to prevent that chaos from coming back, because there were very many visitors – more than the museum can stand. There was complete confusion: everyone going wherever they wanted; tourist groups separately; individuals separately. An ordinary person was practically unable to get around the museum, even the Director was unable to do so in summer, and it was impossible for an ordinary person to simply stand and look at something. Since it was necessary for people to visit, the museum had to be accessible, the ministry requests the figures. The pandemic brought things to a halt. We created a new sort of choreography for visits, something people are groaning about today, but which, nevertheless, as it turns out, we will be keeping. Now we have already thought out a system for how we will receive individual visitors, with tourist groups being separate. If that works out, it will be very good. And I think it should be permanent because that’s a good thing. After all a museum should be like a theatre, with organized visiting, not like Disneyland.

The recording of the full interview is available for listening on the Echo of Moscow website:
https://echo.msk.ru/programs/beseda/2822852-echo/