Piotrovsky: We do not permit any excursions around the Hermitage roofs

The roofs of St Petersburg’s historical buildings are not the best place to conduct extreme excursions, the Hermitage’s General Director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, assures us.

Previously St Petersburg’s “roof climbers” announced that the roof of the State Hermitage was currently being discussed in Smolny [the city administration] as one of the possible variants for the future provision of permitted platforms from which to view the city from above.

“There is nothing unexpected about this for us, because these matters have been discussed many times and there are answers to all the main questions. The roofs of the Winter Palace are those of the special secure facility that is the Hermitage museum. There can be no excursions there. no walks, except those organized by the Hermitage itself. The entire area is well guarded,” Mikhail Piotrovsky told Life.

According to him, excursions around the roof of the General Staff building are quite possible.

“We do have plans to create such walks, excursions going out onto the roof of the General Staff building, where people will be able to come and enjoy the wonderful views. But, once again, it can only be the exclusive decision of the Hermitage itself and the museum community, and certainly not the initiative of any kind of roof-climbers’ organizations or others closely associated with them,” the Hermitage Director emphasized.

Petersburg has plenty of splendid places that give beautiful views of the city, Mikhail Piotrovsky is sure.

“For example, the walk around the bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress. I grew up in Leningrad. The whole of our generation, you might say, grew up on the roofs of the city. we studied for our exams there, went everywhere. We also walked around the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress – it wasn’t allowed back then and they had the militia get us down, but now there is an official walk there,” Piotrovsky said.

In his words, the city has a whole number of other places from which to view it from above, such as the colonnade of St Isaac’s Cathedral.

“All those places are controlled by the institutions to which they belong, and not the commercial enterprise that now so romantically calls itself the ‘roofer movement’. People not only go up themselves, but take others with them for money, making an income out of it. It’s that element of extreme tourism with which we are now having to deal in Karelia [a reference to an incident with tragic loss of life at a children’s summer camp]. Something like that could happen on our roofs, too,” the Hermitage Director emphasized. “That is why there should be proper, well-organized official excursions, while all private commercial initiatives in this field should not be allowed. We do not intend to make museum roofs a place to earn money, still less a place for risk-taking, where people might get killed.”

Mikhail Piotrovsky also noted that nobody will ever allow large numbers of people onto protected buildings.

“The roofs of St Petersburg are not a place of entertainment; they are a place from which any bandit, criminal or terrorist can make his way further down. The most convenient way to get into any facility is from the roof,” he added.

Andrei Makarov
https://life.ru/t/life78/427438/piotrovskii_nikakikh_ekskursii_po_krysham_ermitazha_my_nie_dopustim
2 July, 19:45