Mikhail Piotrovsky's interview with the Echo of Moscow radio station: “The Third Hermitage. The opening of the Hermitage–Ural Centre in Yekaterinburg”

Guest: Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, Academician

Host: Maya Peshkova

A simply tremendous event, of course. The Hermitage–Ural has opened in in Sverdlovsk. That’s tremendous in itself.

Yes, indeed, all in all it’s a kind of sacred event because this is not just one of the Hermitage’s centres, of which as a whole there are quite a few. In Sverdlovsk, the satellite of the Hermitage has opened in the same building where the Hermitage’s collections were gathered, preserved and saved during the war. They were in that building and also in the Ipatiev House that no longer exists. There is a symbolism in that too. It is a sacred matter, an expression of gratitude to Sverdlovsk for taking care of our collections and a commemoration of that. But it is more besides. It is a monument to a great feat accomplished by culture in the battle with war and evil! That’s just what it was, the Hermitage’s time in Sverdlovsk.

I reminded Governor Kuibashev that when we signed the agreement about creating the Hermitage–Ural Centre we said that it would be difficult, but no-one imagined that it would be so difficult. That there would be a pandemic, that the central financing would collapse, and that everything would be very hard to do. Still, we managed it all. A splendid team our people and those from the Urals, great work on the part of the leadership of the region and the city. The director, Nikita Nikolayevich Korytin, is a man devoted to the cause.

And what have we got as a result? We have the Hermitage–Ural. It is not only a wonderful exhibition and educational centre. It is also a recipe of sorts.

What is happening there? The Hermitage provides its brand – the name. The Hermitage provides its traditions, its memory, so to speak. In order for the brand to look as respectable on the soil of the Urals as it does on Saint Petersburg soil, the Hermitage assumes responsibility for the content: it creates exhibitions, puts on lectures, prepares catalogues and master classes. Of course, that is all done jointly with the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, and the Hermitage–Ural is a subdivision of that museum.

The recording of the full interview is available for listening on the Echo of Moscow website:

https://echo.msk.ru/sounds/2872676.html