Mikhail Piotrovsky’s “philosophy of relaxation” was the first to be told to me on occasion by his son Boris: you can’t force him to rest, you can’t take him out for a walk, there’s a stack of books in front of the sofa and nothing else is needed.
House difference
I don't like the dacha? - asks Piotrovsky. - Well, maybe a dacha from the late 19th - early 20th centuries, when you had to pack up for weeks, go out of town and start a special life there. And a modern dacha for me is about the same as an apartment in St. Petersburg. In the summer I try to spend the night here whenever possible. We don’t have any special summer cottage activities. Take a walk in the forest (the forest here is interesting), go to the sea. But the main thing for me at the dacha is to sit by the large window and look at the lawn.
“This is a lawn,” his beautiful wife clarifies.
“But in my opinion, it’s a lawn,” the owner answers with masculine tenacity that doesn’t give in so easily. - And this is a completely different matter than looking at a tapestry in the Hermitage office. Here on the plot there are blueberries growing. Boris comes here more often. Let's meet late evenings, we're leaving. In the city, the beauty of meetings is still not the same, but in the countryside a triumph of return is possible: the gates open, and there is a person at the gates.
I experienced this myself: the gates opened, you stepped into the kingdom of pines, birches and blueberries, and the owners - with a slight but acknowledging nod - are already greeting you from the porch. And for some reason you start to worry.
The Piotrovsky dacha is located in the famous Komarovo, the site of the old Leningrad academic dachas. After the war and the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars "On the construction of dachas for full members of the USSR Academy of Sciences", a plot of land in the Kellomäki dacha was transferred free of charge "for personal ownership" to 25 academicians. And the village was soon renamed in honor of the President of the Academy of Sciences, botanist Komarov, who did not have time to live at the dacha. Akhmatova, Shostakovich, Likhachev, Schwartz, Cherkasov, the Srugatskys, and the Germans lived and vacationed in Komarovo.
Dmitry Likhachev has an interesting diary entry: I have a friend, he is four years old, his name is Boris. It was little Boris Piotrovsky, the son of Mikhail Borisovich and the grandson of Boris Borisovich, often, by the right of a four-year-old neighbor, came to the Likhachevs’ dacha. (“Ira, don’t worry if he doesn’t have dinner in the evening,” Likhachev’s daughter whispered to the boy’s mother; he gladly ate two cutlets from us”). Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky bought the academic dacha late; it was an apartment in a two-story townhouse with a flower bed in front of the entrance. And the family once went to the place where their dacha now stands to pick blueberries.
“I can imagine the difference between my house and Piotrovsky’s house,” the summer resident who had received me before said ironically. “You have no idea,” I laughed. Piotrovsky's dacha is directly perpendicular to the inertial-negative cliché of philistine ideas - one-story, organic to the surrounding forest, the optimal refuge for an intellectual who has never gotten lost in anything unnecessary. And my son’s house in the corner of the plot is the same.
Time to think
The owner is on vacation, and is busy with the main business of the dacha - he sits at the table in front of the large window, looks at the lawn and continues to justify the dacha in his own eyes.
It’s good to think strategically at the dacha. Leisurely. And write slowly. Something not urgent. I’m writing “Director’s Choice” right now. This is a project for directors of world museums - to choose 30 things and paintings, but not your favorite ones, but those you want to talk about. One of my favorites will be there. And so, for example, I have already chosen “The Annunciation” by Simone Martini.
There are so many people in the city near him! - Irina Leonidovna whispers. - And here sometimes - I try - not a single contact.
But “Komarov’s calm” is still relative. The absolute is a thing of the past, now people ride motorcycles, they are constantly building something, building fences. Piotrovsky doesn’t like high fences, but when the British start pointing them out to him, he retorts: when we went to see Lord So-and-So, there were no fences there, of course, but there are electronic security guards for the entire 40 hectares, try going in. Nobody wants privacy invaded.
At the dacha, of course, there is a partial switchover,” continues Piotrovsky. -You switch to think. In general, the most important pleasure for me is thinking. And the main problem is that there is no time for this.
At the same time, he has one of the most important modern skills - the ability to quickly resolve issues. He definitely knows how to do this. (In a minute - and without ignoring the opinions of others - he can decide, for example, to do or not to do this or that exhibition). But the time of slow thought is all the more valuable.
He approaches the table, opens his diary - the long blue line of the marker has already indicated “time to think” in it.
But he has heavy thoughts.
About what's in Lately For some reason, the number of - almost Soviet - bans, and - almost from the 90s - threats has sharply increased. Threats to museum collections come from both private owners and the bureaucracy. The number of restrictions and bureaucratic prodding in search of absolute order is so wild that in response to the remark from the ministry “You have underestimated the financial risks,” you have to directly write that the main risks of the Hermitage are associated with receiving money from the state and thefts, “sanctified” (if you look closely) by officials .
The Hermitage is a place where, no matter how tedious it may be, they are ready to give 150 direct and impartial answers to the endless orders of the ministry. For example, that the reporting required by the ministry is easily falsified, and thefts occur precisely at the level of bureaucratic state reporting. That “electronic accounting” imposed from above is the easiest to fake. That failure to take into account the peculiarities of a museum like the Hermitage is dangerous.
Then his slow “dacha” thought goes into conspiracy theories - but he definitely has the right to it, because he is well aware of it. Behind the almost toxic (due to bureaucracy) behavior of the state is pushing museums towards private forms of existence. Behind the usual “You report poorly, store poorly, your storerooms are bursting, let us take care of it,” couldn’t someone’s plan for a museum redistribution be hidden? In favor of private owners or poor provincial museums?
And just let me touch the museum collection... In the 20s, it all started with innocent revisions, but quickly getting a taste for commanding culture, officials sold thousands of exhibits from the Hermitage abroad. Just yesterday it was a taboo for everyone, but today it is seizures and sales at auctions.
Throughout the 25 years of his directorship, Piotrovsky sees the main threat in the attempt on the collection, and connects everything with it - the strange inspections of the Hermitage, and the strange dark theft from the museum, and raids in connection with exhibitions of contemporary art, and attempts to recreate the Museum of the New Art in Moscow. Western art at the expense of the Hermitage.
So far, the president’s famous joke “even if you come to Piotrovsky with a rifle, he still won’t give away anything from the museum” - confirms his rightness and victory.
Don't believe there is great danger? But listen - one event, carefully seen by Mikhail Piotrovsky. “The law on import and export arose. We (the Union of Museums) first took part in its discussion, and then we were pushed aside and very powerfully passed it through the State Duma (the Duma Committee on Culture objected, but in vain). There are a lot of good things there, but besides them, it turned out to be easier... export cultural values From Russia. And besides, when exhibitions from abroad come to us, state museums, we are now forced to pay different fees. customs duties who had not paid before. The Ministry of Culture gave us a certificate “these are cultural things, you shouldn’t take this and that from them,” but new law Now the ministry has limited it and the certificate should be given by an independent commission, which does not exist.”
And as a result, private museums (which Piotrovsky, in principle, loves and supports) gained something, while state museums lost what they had. Meanwhile, it is precisely state-protected culture that needs privileges - both tax and moral.
So what Piotrovsky thinks about slowly, actually thinks hard.
Realizing that Mikhail Borisovich most likely would not have allowed me to go to the dacha if I, ultimately, were only interested in dacha life, flowers and butterflies, I still risk emerging from the mode of his difficult, slow thoughts and ask a simple question to Irina Leonidovna: “And the dacha did you come up with it?"
Yes, she is,” Mikhail Borisovich is not going to give in to his wife’s answer. - It’s all there - from the idea to the big construction management.
Aren't you interfering?
No. Even if she sometimes asks me for advice, she will still do as she sees fit.
But do you like her choice as a result?
Of course I like it. In general, I like everything that Irina Leonidovna does (you should have heard in what a wonderful tone this was said. - Author's note). This is all dictated by concern for all of us to feel good. But first of all - for me. First she takes care of me - then the children. (Calm, calm, neutral, neutral, Irina Leonidovna is silent.)
Seven things from Piotrovsky's dacha
Wanting to stay at this dacha longer, I ask the owners to show me the 7 most symbolic and characteristic things on it. I personally would be the first to include in the dacha collection of seven symbolic things the painting “Boy in a Scarf” hanging above the stairs. (“The work of Alexander Zadorin,” clarifies Irina Leonidovna. “And this is Misha’s portrait”).
The “scarf theme,” yes, is iconic for Piotrovsky (“You’re taking pictures of me, but am I without a scarf?”), but not at the dacha. The fact is that at temperatures above 23 degrees he takes off his scarf, and today (and often in general) at the dacha it is 29. But Zadorin’s picture is wonderful.
Mikhail Borisovich takes over from us the initiative to search for the seven most telling things about him.
Firstly, this is a stack of books that I read slowly - page by page - at the dacha. I quit one and start another. Sometimes I watch movies at the same time. I read, for example, “Fima” by Amos Oz and immediately watch “Fauda,” the famous Israeli series about terror.
I know one secret of reading Mikhail Piotrovsky for sure: in the stack of books he reads there will definitely be one about economics and finance, last time he called “The Black Swan” by Nasim Taleb, now - I guessed it, there is a book - it’s “Odysseus against the Ferrets” by Georg von Wallwitz - about financial markets.
The dacha is the place where Piotrovsky takes off his scarf. And collects tall stacks of books - for reading and slow thoughts
- “Mirrors for Sheikhs” by Alexander Kazeruni - an absolutely wonderful book about the creation of museums in the Persian Gulf - I need the next report. The book by the new rector of the European University, Vadim Volkov, “The State or the Price of Order” is also worth attention. “The Suffering Middle Ages” is now read by everyone. “The History of the Lakhmid State” is about the pre-Islamic Arabs, and that’s what I’m reading page by page. "Cold Summer" is a word-by-word commentary on Mandelstam's prose. And at the very bottom - always! - book of eternal return, "Petersburg Tales" by Gogol. I have another stack of books on the second floor, would you like me to show you?
The new pack contains "Envy" by Olesha, "The Abnormal" by Michel Foucault, "In Memory of Catalonia" by Orwell and ... "Flowers of Francis of Assisi."
Borya here went to Italy and, once in Assisium, joined the pilgrimage to St. Francis. But we were calm for him: what was possible and what was not allowed in Catholicism was explained to him there by former seminarian Sergei Shnurov.
The story turned out to be quite serious. When the Hermitage had an exhibition of Fabre and the discontent of the “people” appeared, the museum began to think about who could enter into dialogue with the people. As a result, Sergei Shnurov was invited to the exhibition, he liked Fabre, he said - not strangers, but his own - but the right words, and the exhibition passed relatively calmly. The power of the buffoon culture - and the buffoon is almost always smart - is great within a rigid situation.
But, pay attention, the only table that I manage to keep empty,” Mikhail Borisovich continues the tour. (“Did Irina Leonidovna insist?”, “No, Irina Leonidovna does not interfere in such things”). It’s good to have, of course, more than one clean table, but it doesn’t work. And here are the papers only today, because I’m writing. This knife for cutting book pages was given to me by our ambassador in Oman, I was very afraid that it would be taken away from me at the border, it looks like a dagger.
Irina Leonidovna and I propose, as a symbol of the house, portraits of great mathematicians - Newton, Descartes, Laplace, Euler, which hung in the house of Mikhail Borisovich’s grandfather, an artilleryman and mathematics teacher, author of excellent textbooks. I'm interested in bright rosary beads. Mikhail Borisovich accompanies each of our finds with a story and plot.
I brought Lebanese Christian rosaries, and my dad brought the shell rosaries from Oceania.
The things of the late father are a separate “topic”. On the second floor, in the place of honor, there is an antique typewriter, given to his father for his 50th birthday, and Piotrovsky asks to include it in the 7 symbolic things of the house. As well as the restored (Irina Leonidovna did this) antique chair in front of the table.
And also, of course, a dollhouse from your office. It was made by a very large art dealer; many famous directors of world museums have such dollhouses.
The Royal Palace in Amsterdam is also dear to him, because once, when the queen came to the opening of the Hermitage exhibition in the Dutch capital, they did not allow it to open because of the threat of a terrorist attack. And the queen said, “Then let’s all come to me,” her palace was opposite. The Queen did not often live in the palace, she did not really know where her glasses were, she opened the cabinets with keys. Recently, at a meeting with Piotrovsky (she is now a retired queen), she recalled this. And he keeps the tabletop Amsterdam table given to him as a souvenir of this Royal Palace. And this is definitely a symbolic thing in his house.
Maybe it doesn’t look like one, but the miniature chair, the size of a little finger, breathes with its history, one of those made by Valery Fokin’s theater, recreating Meyerhold’s famous “Masquerade”.
I'm starting to think that Piotrovsky doesn't have anything in his house without history - all the rosaries are from Oceania, all the chairs are from Meyerhold. Baskets on the floor, where it is convenient to put both books and a bottle of wine, for example, were “seen” in the house of the Italian publisher Leonardo Montadori. (" Richest man, - recalls Irina Leonidovna, - but great books kept it like this, in baskets, and we liked this idea").
Piotrovsky draws our attention to the icon - this is Saint John (Steblin-Kamensky), a new martyr and confessor of Russia, shot in 1930 near Voronezh. He is an ancestor in his youth best friend Piotrovsky, famous linguist, Iranian scholar, academician Ivan Steblin-Kamensky, who died in May of this year.
The icon was given to me by Vanya’s wife and daughter. His daughter is an icon painter.
Cult of personality
“We have a cult of personality here, of course,” says Piotrovsky, showing a doll of himself.
It is impossible not to mention the paradoxical and ironic line of things in his house - a photograph of a monkey from the zoo who was drawing (“The Hermitage does not allow such crazy things”), a comic birthday greeting received by the owner from the European University “To you, the boyar and the chief judge of the sovereign of the Hermitage ..."
But the jokes are exhausted quickly, and I want to carefully look at the old notebooks in which there are his sketches of ancient Yemeni inscriptions and drawings, which he made as a participant and leader of the famous Yemeni scientific expedition. Judging by modern warfare in Yemen, this may be their only repository in the world, and then there is no price for these notebooks. A book needs to be written about this. But scientific.
This is actually what slows me down,” says Mikhail Borisovich, sitting down at the table on the terrace. - Scientific work requires a deep immersion in all sorts of comparative materials, and there is no time for this.
Irina Leonidovna brings other, no less interesting notebooks - they contain her husband’s latest drawings. “This is the Sacrifice of Abraham,” he explains, while my gaze is confused by the unusual lines, “and this is the Madonna.”
I’m trying to challenge his method of “ragged reading” - one page at a time from different books. This is the same “clip thinking”, the scourge of the modern world and consciousness.
But when you read little, you just begin to read and think slowly,” he objects. - Ira, why is there no sugar on the table?
We don't have sugar in our house. I put some candy.
How is it that we don’t have sugar in our house? - goes to the kitchen and returns with a full bowl of sugar of two types.
Are you hiding sugar from me?! - the wife is surprised, and a calm, loving dialogue begins about the benefits and harms of sugar, consisting half of views and, it seems, is the best test on the topic of whether you see a happy family in front of you or not.
When, before leaving, we stand with Mikhail Borisovich at the gate, and Irina Leonidovna closes the house and quietly walks along the path towards us, I will tell him that I will never cease to be amazed at the art of being a wife - to remain silent when there is something to say, to remember the most important thing, but concerning your husband, and not you, to give up your own for the sake of your husband’s interests (Irina Leonidovna worked on the committee foreign economic relations Petersburg under the leadership of then Deputy Mayor Vladimir Putin, she succeeded, and a stunning career could await her).
“I think being a wife is a talent,” says Piotrovsky. - Moreover, it is innate.
Boris comes to a country restaurant on the Sestra River for lunch. Fit, cheerful, happy. He says that he gave two interviews and shows a new clip shot on a mobile phone.
Self-confident,” says the half-admiring, half-shy Mikhail Borisovich after dinner.
Yes, no, just self-confident, we object.
Yes, perhaps, self-confidence is important,” agrees Piotrovsky already in the car.
My day at the countryside with the great museum worker of the world will end in absolutely no way. The exhibition “Furniture for all body quirks” opens at the Hermitage. It will be opened by the deputy director, since the director is on vacation, but at the exhibition, Piotrovsky will be surrounded by all sorts of people with the persistence of the wasps that are making an invasion of the Komarovo dacha this year. But Irina Leonidovna still manages to fight wasps, but here it’s like dealing with sugar...
And then an office where you urgently need to answer letters" brilliant actress" Helen Mirren asking permission to make a film in the Hermitage (refusal, of course) and an old friend, an English museum worker, asking a personal question (the harsh impact of sanctions on human consciousness), is it dangerous to go to Rostov-on-Don for a scientific conference? “I write to him: are you crazy?”
And in order not to lose the memory of the dacha, all I can do is retreat.
Former Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy (right)
and current director of the State Hermitage Museum
Mikhail Piotrovsky
Comment from user A.B.C.
Online http://www.baltinfo.ru/2013/01/16/V...rmitazhe-330300 :
It has long been known that in the bowels of the museum " State Hermitage Museum", subordinate to the Ministry of Culture of Russia, operates in deep underground, as during the time of the persecutor of Christians, the sadistic Roman emperor Nero, a community of Orthodox Christians, which legally- by Decree of the President of Russia - demands to exempt from “secular exhibitions” the churches of the official residence of the Russian Emperors (homes of the heads of the Russian state - emperors and empresses) - the Winter Palace. Christians urgently ask for the implementation of the Presidential Decrees on the return of objects of Christian worship to the Russian Orthodox Church. The director of the State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, does not pay attention to the legitimate demands of the Orthodox; he does not want to comply with the Decrees of the President of Russia.
Why?
As a former hereditary communist-atheist?
Or for some other reason?
Or citizen M.B. Piotrovsky, who has ascended “very highly,” has no time to pay attention to the Orthodox St. Petersburgers “standing below,” for he (already or still?) is the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, full member of the Academy of Arts, full member of the Academy humanities, Head of the Department of Museum Affairs and Monument Protection, Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg University, Professor of the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University, Head of the Department of History of the Ancient East of the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University, Dean of the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University, Chairman of the Union of Museums of Russia, member of the International Council of Museums, member of the presidium of the Russian UNESCO Committee, laureate of the Presidential Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art, and so on and so forth and so on...
But so far he, M.B. Piotrovsky, is not yet a museum emperor!, which the rector of St. Petersburg does not yet know State University Nikolai Mikhailovich Kropachev, providing Piotrovsky M.B. more and more new positions...
Is it really possible that the former communist-atheist comrade, and now Mr. M.B. Piotrovsky, is so brilliant that while officially in the responsible state service of the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, he can simultaneously perform responsible work in other positions - tens of times greater, than the President himself Russian Federation Vladimir Putin?
Does the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky know that one of the museum directors subordinate to him, wearing his constant scarf around his neck and personifying the ideological trend of “elegant scarfism with short lean Caucasian legs” in Russian political thought, can simultaneously, in addition to the general directorate in the State Hermitage Museum, perform so many other functions and memberships?
To the famous Russian statesman, chief sanitary doctor It is high time for Russia's Gennady Grigoryevich Onishchenko to check why Mr. Piotrovsky does not take care of his health, scrupulously performing so many important duties at the same time. Surely this violates Labor Code RF...
Doesn’t Mikhail Borisovich, as the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, being an “editor” and “compiler”, the author of “prefaces” and “afterwords”, receive money?
Perhaps he passes them on to pensioners - hall supervisors, juniors researchers and the Hermitage employees who receive meager salaries? Give them a list of those who have been blessed!
But why does this happen?
Is he a very rich man?
The fiftieth anniversary of the reign (1964-2014) of the “house of Piotrovsky” in the “State Hermitage” is approaching, about which a special book was written by the doctor-cantor - “The Hermitage. Piotrovsky" (St. Petersburg, 2004, 170 pp.), dedicated to the fortieth anniversary of the dismissal of the outstanding archaeologist Mikhail Illarionovich Artamonov (1898-1972) from the post of director of the Hermitage in 1964.
Artamonov’s resignation occurred “thanks to” exhibition activities the well-known Shemyakin Mishka, now living abroad, is an art provocateur (that’s what he was called in “Saigon”).
As is known, professor and academician Piotrovsky was not involved in the death of Larisa Zavadskaya, who robbed the funds of the State Hermitage Museum (this was proven by the court).
He, being the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, is not guilty of the death of the thief Larisa Zavadskaya at a working museum post!
A thief or thieves stole exhibits worth hundreds of millions of rubles from the funds of the State Hermitage Museum.
Piotrovsky M.B., director of the State Hermitage Museum, professor and member, for this largest theft in the history of the Hermitage, which will soon, in 2014, turn a quarter of a millennium, received only a reprimand from a talker on various occasions and occasions on the Culture channel » former Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy.
By the way, M.B. Piotrovsky’s former relative Natasha Dementyeva (his ex-wife cousin) was the Minister of Culture under Yeltsin and distinguished herself during Yeltsin’s burial of the so-called “Ekaterinburg remains”, which are not recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church the authentic bodies of the family of the last Russian emperor.
One of Natasha’s deputies was Misha, whose last name was Shvydkoy, who castled chairs with Natasha, who, already being a minister, announced to Piotrovsky M.B. for the “exploits” of the thief Larisa Zavadskaya, only a reprimand.
But for similar offenses (neglect of theft), Defense Minister Serdyukov not so long ago lost his high position...
M.B. Piotrovsky is “sitting”! Let's add, still...
“World Citizen of St. Petersburg”, supporting a small clique in the form of the virtual “World Club of St. Petersburgers”, international and Russian order bearer, listed in the list of honorary citizens of St. Petersburg, Mr. M.B. Piotrovsky fools his superiors with unctuous songs and tales and jokes about " cultural heritage and the unsurpassed role of the Hermitage in the history of Russia.”
In general, it is not Dostoevsky who is a symbol of Russian culture, but Piotrovsky! However, as you know, the concept of culture, like any other category, is a sought-after one, which creates the ground for speculation by comrade (former communist) Mikhail Piotrovsky.
It is widely known that Mikhail Piotrovsky is a scientist, an expert on Islam (and therefore a propagandist of the ideas of the Koran - who sincerely does not love his professional knowledge, for which he receives money?).
But for some reason he is also an award winner, as well as the son of an Armenian woman and the Russified Pole-communist B.B. Piotrovsky - Soviet hero socialist labor and order bearer (two orders of Lenin and one October revolution, three Red Labor Banners; there are also other awards from the regional committee of the CPSU, which approved the award lists), a member of the regional committee of the CPSU, who fooled his head about the “bright future of all mankind - communism”!
Once again I would like to ask: who runs the information website of the State Hermitage Museum - not professor or academician Mikhail Piotrovsky, but also Piotrovsky. Isn't he a relative? to CEO Museum "State Hermitage"?
We can continue further, but the time has not yet come...!
Mikhail Piotrovsky in the foyer Hermitage Theater.
The word “Hermitage” now sounds fashionable. In the summer, the oldest Russian museum thundered with an Annie Leibovitz exhibition. Then I went to the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. Moreover, he brought not some St. Petersburg pride like Novikov’s neo-academicists, but the archives of the Moscow conceptualist Prigov. And now he has opened and is showing until mid-January in his Greco-Roman halls an exhibition of abstract sculptures by the living British monumentalist Antony Gormley. Has Dickens's "antique shop" fallen, where generations of people went to see Catherine's tapestries, Rembrandt's "Danae" and Matisse's "Dance"? And where is the director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, looking?
The all-powerful owner of the Winter Palace and Palace Square, who prohibits skating rinks and allows Madonna concerts, the “scarf man,” Mikhail Piotrovsky has long been more than the director of the museum. And now he contemplates the domes and spiers of the Peter and Paul Fortress through the window of his reception room: a stone face, one hand clenched into a fist, an office folder in the other, rectangular glasses with metal frames, a dark blue suit with a matching tie... Piotrovsky then either the colossus - Peter the Great, performed by Stalin's favorite artist Simonov, or the "red director" of the Chernomyrdin era.
Mikhail Borisovich, what needs to be done for you to take off your scarf?
Should I take off my scarf? Please! - Piotrovsky immediately pulls off his legendary black muffler.
Can you tie it like a youth? Well, a clamp?
The photographer takes an almost historical shot. And I quote to Piotrovsky the response of the Hermitage press service to my letter asking whether their director would agree to change clothes for the sake of filming for VOGUE: “No, he is a more than serious person.” A serious man begins to smile.
My stylist is my wife, she suggests, I agree if I like it. Here's a scarf. Everyone always wonders why I wear it. And I just like it. I put it on fifteen years ago and never take it off. When I leave the house, I always wear a scarf. Let's go into the halls, but I need to lock the door.
And Piotrovsky naturally takes a bunch of keys from his pocket, puts us out of the reception area, locks himself inside and appears from the back door around the corner.
His assistants have the day off (we meet on Sunday), and Piotrovsky, who turns sixty-seven in December, stopped by to speak to the students. The Hermitage has come up with a new program for young people - with lectures, master classes and competitions like “Guess which masterpiece is in which hall.”
There is still time before the lecture, and the director takes me to show the Gormley exhibition. Through the Hall of Augustus, where the avant-garde of the grandmother of modern art, Louise Bourgeois, who died last year, is permanently displayed next to the busts of Tiberius and Nero, to the Hall of Dionysus and the Roman Courtyard.
In the first, the Olympian gods were removed from their pedestals and placed directly on the floor. And seventeen cast-iron sculptures by Gormley were installed in the neighboring courtyard. Why such sacrifices?
The viewer passes to the abstract, crude bodies of Gormley's people through a series of perfect bodies of gods - but equal to him, the viewer. He was used to them looking down on him.
But haven't you started too late? And why with Bourgeois, Gormley - honored veterans...
Wrong question. The Hermitage has always been involved in contemporary art. What is the collection of Catherine the Second, with which the museum began? She collected contemporary art - she ordered Chardin, Houdon, Reynolds. Our principle is that art is one thing and there have been no revolutions in it.
In his reception room overlooking the Neva.
In 1930–1940, the Hermitage was given part of the nationalized private collections of Shchukin and Morozov, collectors of the then current impressionist artists. This is how Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Kandinsky appeared in the museum. In 1956, a retrospective of the still living Pablo Picasso was held and the third floor was opened, especially for european art XX century. In 1967, already under Boris Piotrovsky, the father of the current director - a prodigy of Stalinist archeology, academician, Hero of Socialist Labor, who headed the Hermitage for twenty-six years - Lydia Delectorskaya donated a collection of Matisse's works to the museum. Eleven years later, it was here that the first Andy Warhol exhibition in Russia took place.
But the real window to Europe and America was opened by Piotrovsky II. In 2000, the Hermitage staged the first Warhol retrospective and showed latest masterpieces Jackson Pollock. In 2004, the first exhibitions in Russia of the most expensive ones in Russia were held here - the Russian underground artist, the Muscovite emigrant Kabakov and the American abstract artist Rothko. Moscow will see them only in the late 2000s at Garage.
With Kabakov’s “Toilet in the Corner” and “Loneliness in the Closet,” which he donated to the Hermitage, we began forming a collection of contemporary art,” recalls Piotrovsky.
Since then, Bourgeois and Rauschenberg, Polke and Soulages have appeared in the collection of the Hermitage 20/21 project, within the framework of which exhibitions of contemporary art are held. But among the Russians there are only Tselkov and Novikov. But it started well. In 1964, an in-museum exhibition of works by the team was organized, including the disgraced Mikhail Shemyakin, who was then working as a rigger.
That exhibition led to political repression, the resignation of director Artamonov... It took us a whole year to get out. This was a tragedy for the museum and for our art in general. Then it became clear how dangerous shocking behavior was for the museum. And that the Hermitage needs its own way in communicating with contemporary art.
While we are walking around the museum, like Sokurov’s “Russian Ark” - without interruption, I tell Piotrovsky that for me he is, first of all, an Arabist scholar, who was cited very abundantly in my institute diploma.
I sometimes joke that being an orientalist is my profession, and working here is a hobby: there can’t be others with such busyness. By the way, for almost eighty years the Hermitage has been headed by either orientalists or archaeologists. I am an orientalist-archaeologist. An orientalist is an obligation to live in several worlds, an archaeologist is an understanding of where to spend money and how to account for it: you live on expeditions. I was recently asked: “Why is your Islamic art department in the worst condition?” This is true. It is uncomfortable to put your interests first.
He recalls his internship in Nasser’s Egypt, how in the seventies he taught history to the hierarchs of socialist South Yemen - and says that the current revolutions in the East are a personal pain for him. And then he moves on to contemporary art: it has a future, and an interesting one, Piotrovsky is convinced, precisely in the Muslim East.
Islam does not welcome images of people, but abstractions do. It is easier to create a contemporary art museum in Dubai or Baghdad, and it will flourish.
On the Soviet staircase of the Hermitage.
With this and his biography - born in Yerevan, great-great-great-grandfather - Catholic, father - Russian with Polish roots, “son-in-law of the Armenian people”, who spent half his life in the Caucasus, exploring the state of Urartu, mother - Armenian - Piotrovsky explains the universality of himself and his Hermitage.
This is not an art museum, it is a museum of world culture.
This is how it began for Piotrovsky, at the age of four - not with “Danae”, but with military oriental drums in the Arsenal and parquet mosaics.
Isn't it a shame that your son is unlikely to replace you in your post? By the way, have you already decided for yourself when to retire?
Fate decides such things, and such questions are indecent. In 2014 the Hermitage is two hundred and fifty. In particular, a museum of the 19th-20th centuries will open in the Eastern wing of the General Staff building; there will also be contemporary art there - demonstrations of video art and performances. And my son, an economist, is involved in publishing. He also publishes books about the Hermitage. My daughter lives in Moscow, she is a banker, I consult with her on all sorts of economic matters. Maybe the children will continue to participate in the life of the museum. But the Hermitage is not only the Piotrovsky family. It is customary for us to work with families - employees, caretakers.
Since the Hermitage is both family and home, what is your favorite place here now?
I’ll say it now, and then everyone will come and ask me to take pictures there. I once went to Japan and somewhere mentioned that I liked black beer. So then in all the cities where we were, the Japanese ran around looking for black beer for me. But I can’t drink it that much. Right now I’m walking around admiring the Jordan Stairs. We just restored it.
Finally we reach the Hermitage Theater. The seven-row amphitheater is full of schoolchildren and students. "Sit down in orchestra pit", suggests Piotrovsky. From there you cannot see how he speaks, and therefore you especially listen to his words. For example, that in the museum there are no curators, these “always the smartest people in the museum,” but there are research assistants. That it was not the Hermitage that had the honor of participating in the last Venice Biennale, and the Biennale will be hosted by the Hermitage. Piotrovsky is again a pillar to match Alexandria.
Are you serious about the honor of the Biennale being hosted by the Hermitage? - I ask as we sit down in his office under a portrait of his father.
Well, this is so that young people will get into it,” the director smiles. - The Hermitage at the Biennale is a different genre for us, we performed brazenly and self-confidently. I generally like to take risks, to shock. A year ago we held an exhibition of Picasso - we have never had such a large exhibition in the main halls. Colleagues from the Parisian museum, when they saw all these golden columns, were dumbfounded and tried to cover them up. But I was against it. We do everything so that, in any case, all our things are either completely invented by us, or with a sensitive Hermitage accent.
“Apollos” by the main St. Petersburg artist of the 1990s, the founder of neo-academicism Timur Novikov, was exhibited in the General Staff building - overlooking Alexandria Column, Montferrand's paraphrase of the Roman Column of Trajan. When they decided to exhibit photography in 1998, they began (to the disapproval of critics who believed that photography had no place next to painting) with a retrospective of Irving Penn. A status portraitist of Picasso, Stravinsky, Duchamp, the father of modern fashion photography, the author of American VOGUE covers of the fifties and highly artistic still lifes - that is, a creator close to what is already hanging in the Hermitage. And when they later brought black-and-white Polaroids of naked models, orchids and stars of the underground classic Robert Mapplethorpe, they hung them interspersed with engravings of the Dutch Mannerists of the 16th century. Those who saw that exhibition claim that they understood where the cult of perfect bodily beauty that reigned in fashion and gloss in the eighties came from.
Shouldn't we make a purely fashion exhibition of costumes? Here in Pushkin Museum showed Chanel, Dior. And your last one was in 1987 - a retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent...
Wrong question again! We were pioneers in this too. It’s just the same here as with contemporary art - we need our Hermitage stories. In the 2000s we exhibited works by Lamanova and Charles Worth: they sewed for empresses - that’s our story. Or what happened with the Annie Leibovitz photo exhibition. It consisted of two parts: one - the legendary “ceremonial” portraits of stars for Vanity Fair and VOGUE. The second is photographs of the newborn children of Leibovitz, father, life partner Susan Sontag, including the time of her struggle with cancer. And we placed these purely personal photographs in the study-bedroom of Alexander II: he was brought to this room after the assassination attempt, he died in it, and here everything is preserved as is. These walls have seen birth, growing up, life and death. Where else can this be done besides the Hermitage?
Irina Piotrovskaya, the wife of the director of the Hermitage, one of the most famous Russian managers, works as a project director at the Fashion House of Tatyana Parfenova. We spoke with her on Friday, at the end of the day, in the production area, far from the minimalist windows of the Fashion House. While they were talking, Mikhail Borisovich called his wife twice - a dacha was planned for the weekend.
-- Irina Leonidovna, is it difficult to be the wife of the symbol of St. Petersburg, whose name is inextricably linked with both the city and one of best museums peace?
-- Difficult. Very hard. This man grew up in a special environment, from childhood he moved in a certain circle of people, of a certain mind and provisions. Having only become a little larger than a table, he already helped his father - he worked on an archaeological expedition in Armenia (Boris Piotrovsky - director of the Hermitage in 1964-1990 - Ed.). When he was 18 years old and studying at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, he was already translating for very high government delegations. In general, it’s difficult to measure yourself next to him.
How does Mikhail Borisovich fight his cult of personality?
- He doesn’t fight at all: there is no cult. Maybe because he's pretty closed person. And his ability to control himself is not a deliberate “oh, excuse me”, “let me pass”... He is tactful in the same way with everyone. Stars are some on television, others at home, third, tenth. Piotrovsky is the same everywhere.
And yet, in Russia, the cult of personality is difficult to avoid for those who find themselves in power, or for those whose word means a lot to the authorities.
- I think a lot depends on the environment in which a person works. For example, this very cult is rather being created for Putin. I worked with Putin for 6 years. We started together when he was recruiting a team for the External Relations Committee. The most difficult years, when there was only enough bread left in the city for 5 days... We were spinning around like crazy. I am an international specialist, graduated from Moscow in financial and economic relations, monetary and financial relations, with a specialization in Arab countries. Here, in St. Petersburg, there were no specialists in market relations. Putin himself recruited people - she was strong, good team. A person is created by his environment.
Does your spouse involve you in business decisions?
- At home, everyone is equal. I help him as much as possible. As for work, I never interfere in his affairs. This is not the kind of business where a husband, for example a restaurant director, advises how something can be changed in the business. The Hermitage is too huge a machine.
Is your son Boris currently working on the Hermitage website?
- He is studying at Finek, in his fourth year, at the Faculty of Management. When Borya was little, Boris Borisovich brought him a computer console for his TV. Back then, no one had anything like this. And when he was 10 years old, he was already fluent in using a computer. When he was studying at last grades schools, a computer department appeared in the Hermitage. When my son was 13, he already had the best website. He is still leading projects in the Hermitage. But he was never carried away by the design path.
As an economist, have you influenced your son?
— We wanted him to go to the oriental faculty, like our daughter, who graduated from the Arabic department, but now works at Dresdner Bank in Moscow, heading the foreign exchange operations department. It turns out that I, as a financier, influenced her, plus several languages that she knows thanks to the oriental faculty. She is an efficient girl. Married.
You didn't want to send Boris to study abroad?
- My son will graduate from university next year and is learning two languages - English and French. But to study abroad? Mashenka left home, but I don’t want to let go of my second child. Maybe he will stay there. Even now he needs to be pushed on trips. We tell him: Borya, you need language, you need to see how people work.
And you, as a Muscovite, immediately felt good in St. Petersburg? After all, you found yourself in a family with strong St. Petersburg traditions. How do you like it here?
“I still can’t get used to the city.” Everything was great in the family, of course. How can it not be great when Boris Borisovich is next to you! Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky was an amazing man. Misha looks more like his mother outwardly, and more like his father internally. But more dynamic. Now I'm used to St. Petersburg. But when I come to Moscow... I would like to live in Moscow. Moscow absorbs everything faster. In St. Petersburg there is nobility, delicacy, calm. But I miss the dynamics. And I can’t stand it when St. Petersburg residents themselves say “Peter.” It's so cheesy.
What do you remember from the St. Petersburg traditions of the Piotrovsky family?
— When Borenka was little, Mikhail Borisovich’s mother forced us to go for walks with the children. I really didn’t want to go for a walk. We came to the Hermitage and walked around the halls. I sat my son on my hip, and we walked and watched for hours. I didn’t tell Borya: look what a picture, the author is such and such, remember. No. I began to watch Borya - and one day I discovered that he was looking at the floor. We move from hall to hall, the floor pattern changes - Borya looks at the floor for two hours. Next time he "leads" the ceiling. He had his own passions. There is one painting, he called it “Kapochka”, in the Spanish hall, I forgot the author. He approached her as if she were alive, and even talked to her. Then they returned home, and he said: “Oh, mom, Kapochka has come.”
Capital media call Mikhail Piotrovsky the best manager in Russia. What do you think of it?
- He should head the company... I learn about his affairs mainly through television. Or, for example, today I read in Business Petersburg that he signed some kind of agreement. This morning at 8.15 I watched his live broadcast and thus found out what was happening in the Hermitage. Sometimes I think: wow, what a great idea! This is not discussed at home: if a person comes every day at 11 or 12 o’clock at night, he needs rest. And then I’ll keep pestering you: what’s interesting about you, tell me...
Is a home a family's fortress?
- Absolutely. And no extra people, teas, calls. I'm trying to protect him somehow. He needs a break from people.
Does Mikhail Borisovich correspond to the image of an oriental man?
- No, although perhaps he is a bearer of the eastern temperament. I noticed his temperament in Iraq, where we met. When we got off the plane in Baghdad, it turned out that no one was meeting the delegation. Mikhail Borisovich alone knew about this in advance - but he slept peacefully on the plane. Then they brought us to the embassy, settled us, we’ll sort it out, they say. We were given some kopecks, and we decided to spend them entirely on museums. Mikhail Borisovich immediately took over and led us - it was so exciting!
How does your family relax?
— Every year we dream of spending 3 weeks outside the city in Komarovo. But it never works out. Such is the dream. Stay together, sleep, relax.
How did you get to Tatyana Parfenova?
- It happened by accident. We knew Tatyana before, when I was still working at Smolny. After those huge, powerful problems that we had to work on in the Committee on External Relations, this is a completely different world. I work as a project director. Traveling to ready-to-wear shows should have an economic return, not just good reviews in the newspapers.
Whose idea was it to sell Tatiana Parfenova's embroidered scarves in the Hermitage?
-- Not mine. It was decided without me. I’m watching on TV: my husband is standing with Tatyana Parfenova - and both are happy. She is a worthy designer and deserves to have her products sold in the Hermitage. Foreigners buy her things willingly. Tanya is very sensitive to fashion, she feels it about a year in advance.
Who dresses Mikhail Borisovich?
- Basically, of course, I advise something. Both here and on trips. But this happens with shouts, scandals, he doesn’t want to go - it’s a terrible thing to drag him into a store, force him to try on something. Scarves? Somehow they took root on their own. He buys them, I buy them. I even had the impression that this was somehow connected with the Arab world. He says he dreams about Arabic. Arabs and Bedouins cover their faces with scarves. He was once a boss international expedition in Yemen. And then in the photo I saw the scarf on him for the first time. Maybe this is something unconscious, in no way borrowed, for example, from Italian or French fashion. He even sits at the dacha in a shirt and a scarf around his neck. He says he feels so comfortable.
Where do you dress?
— I really like Tanya Parfenova’s clothes, especially the business suit. I practically don't wear skirts - only trousers. Where I worked before was needed White shirt and a jacket. I got used to him. And Tanya also makes elegant suits. I love.
With your overall family employment, who takes care of the house? Do you use the services of interior designers to decorate your home or cottage?
“I can’t imagine Mikhail Borisovich bringing a designer and him saying: hang this here, and put that there.” Maybe there is such a designer, but I can’t imagine him in our house. We used to enjoy going to Nalichnaya to an antique store and buying some things. This is how the house slowly came together.
Do you or Mikhail Borisovich often buy books?
- Under my pressure, he buys them less now. But each exhibition is accompanied by an album. The rest are scientific publications. There are things he needs - these are his life and work. In general, we have a lot of books - we simply have nowhere to keep them. There are no books in the rooms. Where people rest, there are none - otherwise you can go crazy.
Why do they love Piotrovsky?
- He is a man of amazing nobility and decency. And this cannot be ignored. In the Hermitage, everything he does is for the people: so that people go to the Hermitage. Well, let's cancel the discounts for children and win a penny. If children don’t run around the streets in winter, but come to the Hermitage and just sit, that’s already good. They feel warm and good. Today they laugh, tomorrow they think - this is very important.
M. B. Piotrovsky, it seems, never answered the questions of where the disappeared valuables went and why collections of masterpieces went to exhibitions without insurance.
And in general, what came back from “exhibitions” were originals or fakes? As far as we know, no one has carried out any examinations?
A selective and then a total inspection of the Hermitage in 2013 is needed for the safety of masterpieces and their authenticity, and at the same time for all the financial and economic activities of the management of the above-mentioned museum.
After this, it will be clear in what tone and on what topical topics you can speak with this strange director.”
(comment from user BigNode)
P.S. — ANECDOTE ON THE TOPIC:
DYNAMITE STORIES
“GOD HIMSELF ORDERED TO STEAL”
or
TEMPTATIONS OF A TERRORIST
The footmen [of the Winter Palace], and indeed the palace servants in general, were truly “grateful.” From the surviving messages of A.I. Zhelyabov and S.N. Khalturin, it is known that upon entering the Winter Palace, Khalturin was amazed by the morals and customs of his new comrades. Amazing disorder reigned in the management of the palace. The general theft of ministers exceeded all probability. Khalturin’s palace colleagues hosted feasts, which dozens of their acquaintances freely attended without control or supervision. While the highest-ranking officials did not have free access to the palace from the front entrances, the back doors were open day and night to any tavern acquaintance of the latest palace servant. Often visitors stayed overnight in the palace.
The general theft of palace property forced Khalturin to steal food supplies so as not to appear suspicious. Twice he stole porcelain dishes. However, the servants claimed that God himself ordered them to steal, because, for example, palace lackeys received only 15 rubles a month...
Theft in the palace reached such proportions that Khalturin (in a conversation with Narodnaya Volya member A.A. Kvyatkovsky) wondered why the almost unguarded crown of Catherine II, located on the first floor of the palace, which was valued at a million rubles, was not stolen... “How are all these crowns and scepters not stolen? plundered - I can’t imagine it?” said Khalturin.
Preparing the explosion, Khalturin demanded from the Executive Committee “ People's Will“assisting with various intelligence information, and most importantly, supplying him with dynamite.
Pavel Kann.
Walk from the Summer Palace to the Winter Palace
By Palace Embankment St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg, Petrogradsky and Co., 1996, pp. 180-181.
WHY IS THE DIRECTOR OF THE HERMITAGE M. PIOTROVSKY,
SPECIALIST IN ISLAM AND QURAN,
NOT ALLOWED FOR CHRISTIANS
PRAY IN THE TEMPLES OF THE WINTER PALACE?
It has long been known that in the depths of the State Hermitage Museum, subordinate to the Ministry of Culture of Russia, a community of Orthodox Christians operates in deep underground, as during the time of the sadistic Roman emperor Nero, who persecuted Christians, and legally - according to the Decree of the President of Russia - demands to be freed from “secular exhibitions” churches of the official residence of the Russian Emperors (home of the heads of the Russian state - emperors and empresses) - the Winter Palace.
Christians urgently ask for the implementation of the Presidential Decrees on the return of objects of Christian worship to the Russian Orthodox Church. The director of the State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, does not pay attention to the legitimate demands of the Orthodox; he does not want to comply with the Decrees of the President of Russia.
Why?
As a former hereditary communist-atheist?
Or for some other reason?
Or citizen M.B. Piotrovsky, who has ascended “very highly,” has no time to pay attention to the Orthodox St. Petersburgers “standing below,” for he (already or still?) is the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Full Member of the Academy of Arts, Full Member of the Academy of Humanities, Head of the Department of Museum Studies and Monument Protection, Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University, Professor of the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University, Head of the Department of History of the Ancient East of the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University, Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies St. Petersburg University, Chairman of the Union of Museums of Russia, member of the International Council of Museums, member of the Presidium of the Russian UNESCO Committee, laureate of the Presidential Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art, and so on and so forth and so on...
But for now he, M.B. Piotrovsky, is not yet a museum emperor! more and more new positions...
Is it really possible that the former communist-atheist comrade, and now Mr. M.B. Piotrovsky, is so brilliant that while officially in the responsible state service of the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, he can simultaneously perform responsible work in other positions - tens of times greater, than the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin himself?
Does the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky know that one of the museum directors subordinate to him, wearing his constant scarf around his neck and personifying the ideological trend of “elegant scarfism with short lean Caucasian legs” in Russian political thought, can simultaneously, in addition to the general directorate in the State Hermitage Museum, perform so many other functions and memberships?
It is high time for the famous Russian statesman, chief sanitary doctor of Russia Gennady Grigoryevich Onishchenko to check why Mr. Piotrovsky does not take care of his health, scrupulously performing so many important duties at the same time. Surely this violates the Labor Code of the Russian Federation...
Doesn’t Mikhail Borisovich, as the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, being an “editor” and “compiler”, the author of “prefaces” and “afterwords”, receive money? Perhaps he transfers them to retired women - the caretakers of the halls, junior researchers and employees of the Hermitage who receive meager salaries? Give them a list of those who have been blessed!
But why does this happen?
Is he a very rich man?
The fiftieth anniversary of the reign (1964-2014) of the “house of Piotrovsky” in the “State Hermitage” is approaching, about which a special book was written by the doctor-cantor - “The Hermitage. Piotrovsky" (St. Petersburg, 2004, 170 pp.), dedicated to the fortieth anniversary of the dismissal of the outstanding archaeologist Mikhail Illarionovich Artamonov (1898-1972) from the post of director of the Hermitage in 1964.
Artamonov’s resignation occurred “thanks to” the exhibition activities of the well-known Shemyakin Mishka, an art provocateur (as he was called in “Saigon”), who is now abroad.
As is known, professor and academician Piotrovsky was not involved in the death of Larisa Zavadskaya, who robbed the funds of the State Hermitage Museum (this was proven by the court). He, being the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, is not guilty of the death of the thief Larisa Zavadskaya at a working museum post!
A thief or thieves stole exhibits worth hundreds of millions of rubles from the funds of the State Hermitage Museum. Piotrovsky M.B., director of the State Hermitage Museum, professor and member, for this largest theft in the history of the Hermitage, which will soon, in 2014, turn a quarter of a millennium, received only a reprimand from a talker on various occasions and occasions on the Culture channel » former Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy.
By the way, a former relative of Piotrovsky M.B. Natasha Dementyeva (the former wife of his cousin) was Yeltsin’s Minister of Culture and distinguished herself during Yeltsin’s burial of the so-called “Ekaterinburg remains,” which are not recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church as the authentic bodies of the family of the last Russian emperor.
One of Natasha’s deputies was Misha, whose last name was Shvydkoy, who castled chairs with Natasha, who, already being a minister, announced to Piotrovsky M.B. for the “exploits” of the thief Larisa Zavadskaya, only a reprimand.
But for similar offenses (oversight of theft), Defense Minister Serdyukov not so long ago lost his high position... M.B. Piotrovsky is “sitting”! Let's add, still...
“World Citizen of St. Petersburg”, supporting a small clique in the form of the virtual “World Club of St. Petersburgers”, international and Russian order bearer, listed in the list of honorary citizens of St. Petersburg, Mr. M.B. Piotrovsky fools his superiors with unctuous songs and tales and jokes about “the cultural heritage and the unsurpassed role of the Hermitage in the history of Russia.”
In general, it is not Dostoevsky who is a symbol of Russian culture, but Piotrovsky!
However, as you know, the concept of culture, like any other category, is a sought-after one, which creates the ground for speculation by comrade (former communist) Mikhail Piotrovsky.
It is widely known that Mikhail Piotrovsky is a scientist, an expert on Islam (and therefore a propagandist of the ideas of the Koran - who sincerely does not love his professional knowledge, for which he receives money?).
But for some reason he is also an award winner, as well as the son of an Armenian woman and the Russified Pole communist B.B. Piotrovsky - a Soviet hero of socialist labor and order bearer (three Orders of Lenin and one of the October Revolution, three Red Banner of Labor; there are other awards from the regional committee of the CPSU, which approved the award lists), a member of the regional committee of the CPSU, who fooled his head about the “bright future of all mankind - communism”!
I would also like to ask: who runs the information website of the State Hermitage Museum - not professor or academician Mikhail Piotrovsky, but also Piotrovsky. Is he a relative of the general director of the State Hermitage Museum?
And how can one not recall the words of Adlai Stevenson, who once told one gentleman this:
"IF YOU DON'T STOP LYING ABOUT ME
“I WILL NOT STOP SPEAKING THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU!”
…SO WILL THEY BE ALLOWED?
PERMANENT SERVICES
IN DEFAMATED BY THE COMMUNISTS
ORTHODOX TEMPLES
IMPERIAL WINTER PALACE?
DOES EVERYTHING STILL DEPEND
FROM A FORMER ATHEIST COMMUNIST
PIOTROVSKY M.B. ?
Internal view
Great Church of the Winter Palace
in St. Petersburg