"30% of people go to all museums in Russia for free"

The Hermitage continues to work internationally and develop satellite centers in Russia. Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director General of the State Hermitage Museum, told Izvestia on June 5 on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum about international cooperation and what should be done about museum vandals.

"In Belgrade, we extended the Days of the Hermitage"

— You recently received the Order of the Serbian Flag of the first degree for your contribution to the development of cultural ties and strengthening friendship between Serbia and Russia. How is international cooperation going now? And are there aspects of your work that have changed forever?

— Well, the thing is, it's always changing. And international cooperation is not a primitive market where they bought and sold. The shapes change every time. And we did some wonderful things with the Serbs. We spent two seasons of Hermitage Days in Belgrade.

First of all, let me remind you that the Balkans were not a safe place for us until recently. Now other places are unsafe. We didn't cooperate [before], but here we held such meetings very powerfully. There were queues of people, exhibitions, all that.

Secondly, we have developed a completely new format for Hermitage Days. But we had multimedia exhibitions, there were copies of paintings that are very important for Serbia. Portraits of Serbian generals from the gallery in 1912, the whole story of Miloradovich. An exhibition dedicated to Peter, items from Serbian monasteries. The days were extended, the exhibitions were extended, there were queues, that is, everything worked out. This is a somewhat new format.

— Are there any international Hermitage projects that were conceived and developed, but are now on pause?

— All our projects are international. We are a world museum. We are a global museum. Everything we do is international. If we're not lucky, it's high in the clouds. There is something that we have put on pause, of course. Currently, there are no official interactions on the part of the West at the official level. They are all forbidden to work with us.

At the normal level of scientists, everyone works for themselves, drives, and so on. Our centers are on pause. We have many centers in the world. Some closed on their own, served their time. The Amsterdam center has now closed.

Our center in Venice is frozen. The rooms are still ours. So something is changing all the time. We have a system of Hermitage satellites. It's scheduled to close at any time. These are not branches, this is such a system: either there is no money, or something like that, and they close. It's easy to close and open, and that's what they're designed for.

"The Hermitage satellite center is scheduled to open in Oman"

— As for the foreign satellite centers that were already on the eve of opening, we know about such in South Korea and Oman.

— They are not on the eve of the opening. They are planned. We have a planned center in Oman. There is a war going on there now, as you understand, if [US President Donald] Trump will also bomb Oman, then it will be bad, but a satellite is planned there. We are currently choosing a location, and a center will be built there, where there will be both an exhibition and an archaeological part. We have special ties with Oman. I am a member of the Board of Trustees of the Sultanate of Oman National Museum. We have a corner of the Oman Museum in the Hermitage, and a corner of the Hermitage there. And this scheme works: both.

Exposure is one thing. We recently opened a huge exhibition in Korea. There will be a center based on it. These are completely multimedia things, but in such a deep understanding. Entertainment is not our focus, but seriously — in Korea they understand multimedia things as part of art, and here is the Hermitage, represented through multimedia, that is, ceilings, roofs, buildings, floors, paintings, all these things, this in itself is valuable, wonderful, and it was possible to do it together with the Koreans.

"Everything is done with the money of the receiving party"

— And the satellite centers that operate in Russia and which are also preparing to open? We know about Kaluga, we know about Vladivostok. Explain the meaning of the satellite center, because you also said that they are mistakenly called branches. Aren't these branches of the Hermitage?

— Yes, these are not branches. This is a joint venture. A branch office is such a colonial scheme. The center has arrived, and you create your own opposing, competing with others. We have a joint venture. We have a joint venture in Vyborg with the Hermitage Foundation. In Kazan it is part of the Kazan Kremlin Kazan Nature Reserve, in Omsk it is part of the Omsk Museum, in Yekaterinburg it is also part of the museum. In other words, these are always joint ventures. We bring two exhibitions a year.It's clear that we do them together. We are conducting a whole educational program, we are holding Hermitage Days. But all this is done together, and it is done with the money of the receiving party.

— How do people in these cities feel about the exhibition coming to them from St. Petersburg, from the Hermitage? Don't you have any jealousy that these people, as tourists, could come to St. Petersburg? Could you come directly to the Hermitage?

— You see, these places, these venues, are part of our large exhibition program. In other words, we do special exhibitions. You will see these exhibitions here at the Hermitage only when they come back here, if we show them. Now in Kazan, for example, there is an amazing exhibition of the Yusupovs. Everything we have about the Yusupovs is collected there. And costumes, and fans, and history, and amazing collections. It's themed. She never was, never will be. This is not a substitute for coming to the Hermitage and seeing something. On the contrary, people see things that they will never see in the Hermitage.

Therefore, this is just a whole part of our big policy of providing intelligent access to our collections. So it turns out, in my opinion, on the contrary, very well.

"Now the Soviet Union has moved to Europe"

— If we return to the international situation. Within a month of each other, Serbia awards you for international cooperation, and the European Union lists your name in the 20th package of sanctions. Has it affected your life or your work in any way?

"My life has nothing to do with it. I've been working, and I'm still working. Indeed, the presentation of the Serbian Order in this sense was a very striking gesture. As for sanctions, sanctions are generally an immoral thing. In principle, if the world order is based on the protection of cultural ties, now it is based on something else.

Now the Soviet Union has moved to Europe. This is actually a Soviet scheme - "no travel". Now I am not allowed to travel to Europe. Just like the circulation of the book that we prepared two years ago was scattered — it used to be scattered in the Soviet Union. We printed it anyway. This is just such a move of the totalitarian system to the West. Well, we grew up in Soviet times, we know how to live in these conditions.

"Butyagin's experience has taught us to be careful"

— What about the participation of Russian scientists in international events? Because the work of a scientist in itself implies international cooperation, communication with foreign colleagues. What has the experience of archaeologist Alexander Butyagin taught us?

— Butyagin's experience has taught us that you need to be careful, and secondly, you still need to drive. Scientists are driving and will continue to drive, but we will decide more carefully what protective measures are needed. Yesterday, there was a round table discussion about relations between Russia and the United States, and we briefly discussed what we are seriously talking about now.

The whole world system, developed by the protection of the humanities, which, by the way, was invented by Nicholas II and Marcus, and we started it in Russia, then it grew into a powerful system, it does not work. This system — not to bomb cultural institutions, not to arrest cultural figures — does not work.

What did Butyagin have? No international body responded. UNESCO said: "It's none of our business." That is, the system is not working right now. The system needs to be changed: as Nicholas II created then, so we will begin to change. We will have a forum of united cultures, we will talk about this topic, we have already started talking with diplomats. And it needs to be changed, it should be based on two-way warranty systems. That's why there should be a guarantee for every thing that it will be like this.

The two-way system is working, and it worked for us in 2022. After all, there were calls to arrest our exhibitions in Paris. The honest system worked flawlessly. Those who were given the exhibition considered it a matter of honor to return it, regardless of the situation. And the legal system traditionally does not work.

Here is the story of the Crimean exhibitions, which were stolen and absolutely immorally not returned to the museum to which these items belong. It didn't work out because the agreements were going through the normal legal way, they all didn't work out. Therefore, a proper system of guarantees and two-sidedness is needed here. When a person has promised a person, it generally doesn't always work, but it often does.

— Soon Butyagin will go to an event in Kaliningrad, and there was a lot of media coverage.: "Hopefully, he won't go there by train, but will fly by plane."

— No one goes to Kaliningrad by train, they only fly to Kaliningrad by plane.

"A second center is being built in Lakhta"

— You stated the need to form a "second Petersburg". How do you assess the possibility of its implementation? What do you see as its main elements?

— I have not stated any thesis. In principle, there is a long-standing tradition, invented by the architects of St. Petersburg, that in order to save the city center, it is necessary to create a new center. Soviet architects tried to create a city center on Moskovsky Prospekt so that everything would move there. But it didn't work out.

It is clear that the bosses do not want to leave. In general, there is a difficult struggle going on, because it is important for culture to preserve the center, and for developers it is always cheaper to bomb the center, smash it up, and build a new one, but sit here. But gradually it turns out. They wanted to build a skyscraper in Okhta, but everything was unacceptable. During the struggle, he moved to Lakhta. And here in Lakhta, it turns out, the real center. There's a stadium, there's one skyscraper, and there's another. There are cultural centers that work there. We have a second Hermitage nearby. Five buildings, and in general they are already becoming a part of it.

— What else is needed, in your opinion? What should be in such a center?

— There is a stadium, there is a business, there are supermarkets. In fact, everything is there. There is a Hermitage. In general, almost everything.

— Can it already be considered the second center?

— It is necessary. But urbanists have designs. They need a hub there, so that there is a transfer, so that people can drive up and come. In general, there is a lot more that can be done, but so far it is working on its own. It is very important.

"Vandalism in museums should be punished"

— With frightening frequency, we began to see antics that are a priori impossible in the museum space. Last May, one visitor sat on the throne of the Order of Malta, and this year another climbed onto the Grand Imperial Throne. The teenager filmed a video on the street as he climbed the facade of the Hermitage Theater, posed next to the sculpture. Explain how to perceive this? How do you explain to people that you can't do this?

— Well, first of all, of course, it is necessary to punish. By the way, there were old shootings with the teenager. Because something has changed with the roofers. In particular, the state has begun to punish more harshly for fraud. Because cheating, especially when you climb onto the roof of the Hermitage, is an attempt at theft. There's no other way to explain it. Therefore, it is necessary to punish. Now there are strict rules. Therefore, it has weakened a little, although we continue to fight.

Two things are important here. First of all, it's called vandalism, and this vandalism is always present in the human character, especially when you are unsuccessful in something or you need to express yourself in some special way, spoil something good. You have to fight this, hit your hands hard.

Secondly, museums are very popular, and everyone, from big companies to hooligans and activists, wants to use the museum to prove themselves. This is happening all over the world: Vincent van Gogh paintings are doused with ketchup, they chain themselves, they start shouting something. It's from the same field. This must be dealt with, firstly, by punishments, and secondly, by a well-developed system. We have almost worked out that it is necessary to isolate a person, and, so to speak, to capture him further.

The bastard climbed onto the throne and began to recite poetry. No matter how he read the speech, you can't sit on the Great Imperial Throne. It is a museum exhibit and, moreover, the throne of the Russian Empire. But the court released him. I let him go, and the next day he came to the Hermitage. Criminals always come to the crime scene. These are museum criminals.

— Won't additional security measures at the Hermitage be strengthened now? Won't the rules of entry, admission, and inspection be tightened?

— Well, you know, this is also very serious. Let's say I brought knives. They were in his sneakers. They are not determined by anything other than a very thorough inspection. We're not going to take off our shoes at the airport, it's the end of the world.

They say that security measures at airports are quite strict, but this case showed that everything that was being done was correct. After all, they sell knives on the Internet that do not accept gates. So law enforcement agencies need to tune in and figure out what to do about it. But such bandits and vandals exist, and we must fight them all the time.

"30% of people go to almost all museums in Russia for free"

— Now there should be a discussion of new criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of museums in order to measure not only the number, attendance, income of the museum, but also the quality of work. Is it possible to do this? What is your position on this issue? And how can we convince officials and patrons that we need to change our approach?

— We are not going to convince anyone. We have created a program. This is a museum's vision of what is good and what is bad. The Ministry evaluates the effectiveness of the Director's work according to its criteria. And we evaluate it in our own way. We have a Hamburg account. Here we are working out this Hamburg bill. Even the Pope in his encyclical last said that efficiency and income cannot be the goal.

Indeed, all these attendances are not only incorrect criteria, they also incorrectly set up people — both those who are being checked and those who work [at the museum]. And we also live in the world of artificial intelligence, which is starting to triple all this. An ordinary official can still get into the situation, understand that "that's enough," and the machine will keep counting all the time. That's what they do: cars ask us all the questions, cars evaluate.

That is why we are currently discussing this Hamburg bill. Well, for example, there are criteria for the number of free visits. The fact is that in our country there are no benefits for visitors to cultural institutions. There are some proclaimed ones, but there is no compensation. Therefore, the museum must earn the money taken out of the museum's pocket, because it pays for the passage.

— So the free Hermitage Day is your gesture of goodwill? Are you opening the doors?

— This is our gesture of goodwill. And it's not just at the Hermitage, 30% of people go to almost all museums in Russia for free. Therefore, free Hermitage day, free Thursday for pensioners, a lot of people — all these museums do themselves. This is one of the criteria. Next to this criterion should be the criterion of the average or median salary of museum staff, because it should correlate.

Right now we have several round tables where we work out a scheme primarily for ourselves, and then, so to speak, let the officials take a look, we will only convince them with the effectiveness of our work.

We can count endlessly. There should be another criterion: how much the museum can comfortably accommodate. For example, our main complex, the Winter Palace, now accepts almost 90% of what it can accept.

And the Main Headquarters, where there is a different style of communication with art, is where fewer people come than they can accept. Therefore, our General Staff can still increase attendance, and the Winter Palace is almost done: there is no need to push for more visitors. These are the schemes. They're just more complex and harder to report.

"A museum director must have a profession"

— You have published a book called "I am an Arabist". At her presentation, you said an interesting phrase: "My hobby is the director of the Hermitage, and my profession is an Arabist." You have the opportunity to look at modern life, having knowledge about centuries and millennia. In theory, humanity is not inventing anything new. Humanity has been moving in some kind of vicious circles, spiraling through the centuries, through the millennia. You've seen it all, you know it all. Aren't you bored in the modern world?

— Of course, it's not boring. Precisely because I know that it has already happened a thousand times, that is why it is very interesting to see how it is done next time. I studied Arabia in the sixth century, and I know the whole story, which is now repeating itself — the straits are closed, everyone is in revolt, the northern countries are starting to restore order, bomb, send someone, and all that. Everything has already happened. And it's interesting to see how it happens in a new way. Therefore, of course, knowledge and history make a person wiser.

And the joke about hobbies is fundamental, because the point of it is that a museum director should have a profession. He can't just be a manager. A museum director can become a good manager, even if he is a scientist. A manager doesn't have time to become a scientist. But if a scientist is already ready, they quickly become a manager.