Why does the director of the Hermitage, Piotrovsky, always wear a scarf? Why does the director of the Hermitage, Piotrovsky, not allow Christians to pray in the temples of the Winter Palace? About the imperial state

Former Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy (right)
and current director of the State Hermitage Museum
Mikhail Piotrovsky

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Online http://www.baltinfo.ru/2013/01/16/V...rmitazhe-330300 :

It has long been known that in the bowels of the State Hermitage Museum, subordinate to the Ministry of Culture of Russia, in the deep underground there is a community of Orthodox Christians, as in the days of the persecutor of Christians, the sadistic Roman emperor Nero, who, on legal grounds - by decree of the President of Russia - demands to be released from "worldly exhibitions" temples of the official residence of the Emperors of Russia (homes of the heads of the Russian state - emperors and empresses) - the Winter Palace. Christians urgently ask to fulfill the Decrees of the President on the return of the objects of Christian worship to the Russian Orthodox Church. 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 atheist communist?
Or for some other reason?
Or citizen Piotrovsky M.B., who has ascended “very high”, has no time to pay attention to the “standing below” Orthodox Petersburgers, 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 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 Petersburg University, Chairman of the Union of Museums of Russia, member of the International Council of Museums, member of the Presidium of the Russian Committee of UNESCO, laureate of the Prize of the President of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art, and so on and so forth and so on ...
But for the time being, he, M.B. Piotrovsky, is not yet a museum emperor! more and more posts...
Is it possible that the former atheist communist comrade, and now Mr. Mikhail 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 - dozens of times more, 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 invariable 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, to 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 protect 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", not receive any money?
Perhaps he passes them on to pensioners - caretakers of the halls, junior researchers and employees of the Hermitage, who receive a meager salary? Give them a list of those blessed!
But why is this happening?
Is he a very rich man?
The fiftieth anniversary of the reign (1964-2014) of the “Piotrovsky House” in the State Hermitage Museum is just around the corner, about which the doctoral cantor has written a special book, The Hermitage. Piotrovskie” (St. Petersburg, 2004, 170 pp.), timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the removal from the post of Director of the Hermitage in 1964, the outstanding archaeologist Mikhail Illarionovich Artamonov (1898-1972).
Artamonov's resignation took place “thanks to” the exhibition activities of the notorious Shemyakin Mishka, who is now abroad, a provocateur from art (that was his name 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 proved 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 the 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 Corresponding Member, for this largest theft in the history of the Hermitage, which will soon, in 2014, turn a quarter of a millennium, suffered only a reprimand from the talkative on various occasions and occasions on the Kultura channel » former Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy.
By the way, the former relative of M.B. Piotrovsky Natasha Dementyeva (the former wife of his cousin) was the Minister of Culture under Yeltsin and distinguished herself when Yeltsin buried the so-called “Ekaterinburg remains”, which are not recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church as the true bodies of the family of the last Russian emperor.
One of Natasha's deputies was Misha, by the name of Shvydkoi, who swung chairs with Natasha, who, already a minister, announced to Piotrovsky M.B. for the "exploits" of the thief Larisa Zavadskaya, only a reprimand.
But after all, for similar offenses (oversight of theft), Defense Minister Serdyukov not so long ago lost his high place ...
M.B. Piotrovsky is “sitting”! Let's add still...
"World Citizen of St. Petersburg", supporting a small clan in the form of a virtual "World Club of St. Petersburg", an 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, tales and jokes about "the cultural heritage and the unsurpassed role of the Hermitage in the history of Russia."
In general, not Dostoevsky - a symbol of Russian culture, but Piotrovsky! However, as is known, the concept of culture, like any other category, is a sought-for one, which creates ground for speculations by comrade (former communist) Mikhail Piotrovsky.
It is widely known that Mikhail Piotrovsky is a scientist, a specialist in Islam (and, therefore, a propagandist of the ideas of the Koran - who sincerely does not like his professional knowledge, for which he receives money?).
But for some reason, he is also a laureate of awards, as well as the son of an Armenian woman and a Russified Pole-communist B.B. regional committee of the CPSU, who approved the award lists), a member of the regional committee of the CPSU, fooling around about "the bright future of all mankind - communism"!
Once again I would like to ask: who maintains the information site of the State Hermitage Museum - not a professor or academician Mikhail Piotrovsky, but also Piotrovsky. Isn't he a relative of the General Director of the State Hermitage Museum?
You can continue further, but until the time has come ...!

I can't just ask two questions: why i wear a scarf and what is my favorite picture.

The Hermitage is a skete. For most people, this is a place to go and hide.

We are very formal. Our exhibitions have an imperial bias not because we are so proud. We just have to keep it: there is no king, but many traditions remain. There is a king house. And we are not exactly his servants, but we help to spread the spirit of the house. The Hermitage is a palace that remembers itself in an amazing way. And everything around should be determined by the palace, its style and taste.

Culture and politics are intertwined. Only culture stands above politics. When everything in politics collapses, culture remains the bridge between people, which is the last to be blown up.

Without the exhibition at Versailles, there would have been no meeting between Putin and Macron. The new president of France would not hold a meeting without a reason. Art that unites nations always has a diplomatic function. Crises were overcome with the help of art. Recall the Soviet era: first they sent an exhibition, and then relations were restored.

When it became clear that ancient Palmyra was no more, I felt angry. It is clear that monuments and treasures could be protected.

Any Middle Eastern War looks like a crusade. The story is known how, during the Russian-Turkish war, Catherine I collected all the jewels, gave a bribe to the Turks, they opened the corridor, and the Russians left the encirclement. You can only fight for monuments and protect them.

The museum will never become completely virtual. Now it is already full of all sorts of tents, where all the paintings of Van Gogh are shown at once. There is nothing wrong with this, except that such a format cannot be called a museum, where there is the energy of a genuine thing.

We are told: Here you are, well done, turned to contemporary art! But there is nothing new in this. Emperors bought their contemporary art. And the first exhibition of contemporary art was held in Petrograd in 1918 in the Winter Palace. Can we stand apart today?

We must not only please visitors, but also introduce them to something new. When we put the skulls and stuffed Fabre in the Snyders hall, people began to pay attention to Snyders, although they usually pass by him quickly.

There was no great excitement in connection with the exhibition of Jan Fabre. There were a little more visitors, but it was incomparable with Serov or Aivazovsky, who increased the attendance of the Tretyakov Gallery many times over. The task was to ensure that Fabre was seen by those who would never have come to see him.

Trust is not democracy. This is a sign of strength.

In difficult conditions as you know, poets write good poems, artists write good pictures, and when everything is free, nothing happens.

I fully accept the current regime. I would like to take no positions, but sometimes it needs to be done and helped. For me, being elected to the State Duma in 2011 was about the same as writing a letter to the patriarch about St. Isaac's Cathedral. There are situations when you have to step out of line and say something.

It would be much worse if no one cares about your opinion.

Many processes that are taking place in society and the world today can be explained by one expression: Back in USSR. The title of the Beatles song is just right. Especially since it parodies Chuck Berry's Back in USA. And we here, in St. Petersburg, try to live like in the song Simon & Garfunkel Bridge over Troubled Water (Bridge over stormy waters. - Esquire).

Petersburg must be loved at least then, so that he doesn't drown. It breaks down very easily. The city is built on a swamp, the city has prophecies, the city is hated. He can go under water at any moment.

I have a rich and varied life. I live in many worlds and continue to be an orientalist. I have no time to regret that something went wrong. Variety creates perfection.

Museum - it is a powerful cleanser. ≠

It seems that M.B. Piotrovsky did not answer questions about where the disappeared valuables had gone and why the collections of masterpieces went to exhibitions without insurance.
And in general, did the originals or fakes come back from the “exhibitions”? Examination, as far as we know, no one conducted?
We need a selective, and then a total check in 2013 of the Hermitage for the safety of masterpieces and their authenticity, and at the same time all the financial and economic activities of the management of the above-mentioned museum.
After that, it will be clear in what tone and on which topical topics you can talk with this strange director.

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P.S. - JOKE ON THE TOPIC:

DYNAMITE STORIES

"GOD HIMSELF ORDERED TO STEAL",
or
Temptations of the terrorist

The lackeys [of the Winter Palace], and the palace servants in general, were really "hard-boiled." From the surviving reports of A.I. Zhelyabov and S.N. Khalturin, it is known that upon entering the Winter Palace, Khalturin was struck by the mores and customs of his new comrades. An amazing disorder reigned in the management of the palace. The rampant theft of ministers exceeded all probability. Khalturin's palace colleagues arranged feasts at which dozens of their acquaintances freely passed without control and supervision. While from the main entrances to the palace there was no free access to the highest-ranking persons, the back doors were open day and night for any tavern acquaintance of the last palace servant. Often visitors stayed and spend the night in the palace.

The general theft of palace property forced Khalturin to steal food 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 A.A. Kvyatkovsky, member of Narodnaya Volya) wondered why the almost unguarded crown of Catherine II, which was located on the first floor of the palace, was not stolen, which was estimated at a million rubles ... “Like all these crowns and scepters plundered - I’ll never know?”, - said Khalturin.

Preparing the explosion, Khalturin demanded from the Executive Committee of "Narodnaya Volya" assistance with various intelligence information, and most importantly, supplying him with dynamite.

Pavel Kann.
Walk from the Summer Palace to the Winter Palace
along the Palace embankment of St. Petersburg.
SPb., "Petrogradsky and Co.", 1996, pp. 180-181.

WHY THE DIRECTOR OF THE HERMITAGE M. PIOTROVSKY,
SPECIALIST IN ISLAM AND THE KORAN,
DOES NOT ALLOW CHRISTIANS
TO PRAY IN THE CHURCHES OF THE WINTER PALACE?

It has long been known that in the bowels of the State Hermitage Museum, subordinate to the Ministry of Culture of Russia, in the deep underground there is a community of Orthodox Christians, as in the days of the persecutor of Christians, the sadistic Roman emperor Nero, who, on legal grounds - by decree of the President of Russia - demands to be released from "worldly exhibitions" temples of the official residence of the Emperors of Russia (homes of the heads of the Russian state - emperors and empresses) - the Winter Palace.

Christians urgently ask to fulfill the Decrees of the President on the return of the objects of Christian worship to the Russian Orthodox Church. 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 atheist communist?

Or for some other reason?

Or citizen Piotrovsky M.B., who has ascended “very high”, has no time to pay attention to the “standing below” Orthodox Petersburgers, 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 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 Petersburg University, Chairman of the Union of Museums of Russia, member of the International Council of Museums, member of the Presidium of the Russian Committee of UNESCO, laureate of the Prize of the President of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art, and so on and so forth and so on ...

But for the time being, he, M.B. Piotrovsky, is not yet a museum emperor! more and more posts...

Is it possible that the former atheist communist comrade, and now Mr. Mikhail 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 - dozens of times more, 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 invariable 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, to 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 protect 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", not receive any money? Perhaps he passes them on to pensioners - caretakers of the halls, junior researchers and employees of the Hermitage, who receive a meager salary? Give them a list of those blessed!

But why is this happening?

Is he a very rich man?

The fiftieth anniversary of the reign (1964-2014) of the “Piotrovsky House” in the State Hermitage Museum is just around the corner, about which the doctoral cantor has written a special book, The Hermitage. Piotrovskie” (St. Petersburg, 2004, 170 pp.), timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the removal from the post of Director of the Hermitage in 1964, the outstanding archaeologist Mikhail Illarionovich Artamonov (1898-1972).

Artamonov's resignation took place “thanks to” the exhibition activities of the notorious Shemyakin Mishka, who is now abroad, a provocateur from art (that was his name 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 proved 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 the 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 Corresponding Member, for this largest theft in the history of the Hermitage, which will soon, in 2014, turn a quarter of a millennium, suffered only a reprimand from the talkative on various occasions and occasions on the Kultura channel » former Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy.

By the way, a former relative of Piotrovsky M.B. Dementyeva Natasha (the former wife of his cousin) was the Minister of Culture under Yeltsin and distinguished herself when Yeltsin buried the so-called “Yekaterinburg 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, by the name of Shvydkoi, who swung chairs with Natasha, who, already a minister, announced to Piotrovsky M.B. for the "exploits" of the thief Larisa Zavadskaya, only a reprimand.

But after all, for similar offenses (oversight of theft), Minister of Defense Serdyukov not so long ago lost his high place ... M.B. Piotrovsky is “sitting”! Let's add still...

"World Citizen of St. Petersburg", supporting a small clan in the form of a virtual "World Club of St. Petersburg", an 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, tales and jokes about "the cultural heritage and the unsurpassed role of the Hermitage in the history of Russia."

In general, not Dostoevsky - a symbol of Russian culture, but Piotrovsky!

However, as is known, the concept of culture, like any other category, is a sought-for one, which creates ground for speculations by comrade (former communist) Mikhail Piotrovsky.

It is widely known that Mikhail Piotrovsky is a scientist, a specialist in Islam (and, therefore, a propagandist of the ideas of the Koran - who sincerely does not like his professional knowledge, for which he receives money?).

But for some reason he is also a laureate of prizes, as well as the son of an Armenian woman and a Russified Pole-communist B.B. regional committee of the CPSU, who approved the award lists), a member of the regional committee of the CPSU, fooling around about "the bright future of all mankind - communism"!

I would also like to ask: who maintains the information site of the State Hermitage museum - not a professor or academician Mikhail Piotrovsky, but also Piotrovsky. Isn't he a relative of the General Director of the State Hermitage Museum?

And how can one not recall the words of Adlai Stevenson, who at one time spoke to one gentleman like this:

"IF YOU DON'T STOP LIES ABOUT ME
"I WON'T STOP TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU!"

…SO WILL IT BE ALLOWED
PERMANENT SERVICES
IN DESPITED BY COMMUNISTS
ORTHODOX CHURCHES
IMPERIAL WINTER PALACE?
DOES EVERYTHING STILL DEPEND
FROM A FORMER ATHEIST COMMUNIST
Piotrovsky M.B. ?

Interior view
Great Church of the Winter Palace
in St. Petersburg

Mikhail Piotrovsky in the foyer of the Hermitage Theatre.

The word "Hermitage" now sounds fashionable. In the summer, the oldest Russian museum thundered with an exhibition by Annie Leibovitz. Then I went to the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. Moreover, he brought not some Petersburg pride like Novikov's neo-academicists, but the archives of the Moscow conceptualist Prigov. And now he has opened and shows until mid-January in his Greco-Roman halls an exhibition of abstract sculptures by the living British muralist Anthony Gormley. Has the Dickensian "antiquities shop" fallen, where for generations people went to Catherine's tapestries, Rembrandt's "Danae" and Matisse's "Dance"? And where does the director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, look?

The all-powerful owner of the Winter Palace and Palace Square, who forbids skating rinks and allows Madonna's concerts, the "scarf man", Mikhail Piotrovsky has long been more than a museum director. 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 in a metal frame, a dark blue suit with a matching tie ... Piotrovsky then whether the colossus - Peter the Great performed by Stalin's favorite artist Simonov, or the "red director" of the era of Chernomyrdin.

Mikhail Borisovich, what needs to be done to make you take off your scarf?

Should I take off my scarf? Please! - Piotrovsky immediately pulls off his legendary black scarf.

Can you knit like a youth? Well, a collar?

The photographer takes an almost historic shot. And I am quoting to Piotrovsky the answer of the Hermitage press service to my letter, whether their director will agree to change clothes for the sake of shooting for VOGUE: “No, he is more than a serious person.” The serious man begins to smile.

My stylist is my wife, she offers, I agree if I like it. Here is the scarf. Everyone is constantly wondering why I wear it. And I just like it. As I put it on fifteen years ago, I still don’t take it off. When I leave the house, I always wear a scarf. Let's go to the halls, only I need to lock the door.

And Piotrovsky naturally takes a bunch of keys out of his pocket, pushes us out of the waiting room, locks himself inside and appears from the back door around the corner.

His assistants have a day off (we meet on Sunday), and Piotrovsky, who turns sixty-seven in December, stopped by to speak to the students. The Hermitage came up with a new program for young people - with lectures, master classes and competitions like "Guess which masterpiece is in which room."

There is still time before the lecture, and the director is taking me to show the Gormley exhibition. Through the hall of Augustus, where, next to the busts of Tiberius and Nero, the avant-garde of the grandmother of modern art, Louise Bourgeois, who died last year, is on permanent display, to the hall of Dionysus and the Roman courtyard.

In the first, the Olympian gods were removed from the pedestals and placed directly on the floor. And seventeen cast-iron Gormley sculptures were installed in a nearby courtyard. Why such sacrifices?

The viewer passes to the abstract, rough bodies of Gormley's people through a series of perfect bodies of the gods - but equal to him, the viewer. He's used to them looking down on him.

But are you too late to start? And why with Bourgeois, Gormley - honored veterans ...

Wrong question. The Hermitage has always dealt with contemporary art. What is the collection of Catherine II, with which the museum began? She also collected art contemporary to her - she ordered Chardin, Houdon, Reynolds. Our principle is art is one 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 actual Impressionist artists. This is how Van Gogh, Cezanne, 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 of the 20th 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 Delektorskaya donated a collection of works by Matisse to the museum. Eleven years later, it was here that Andy Warhol's first exhibition in Russia was held.

But the real window to Europe and America was opened by Piotrovsky II. In 2000, the Hermitage hosted the first Warhol retrospective and showed the latest masterpieces of Jackson Pollock. In 2004, the first exhibitions in Russia of the most expensive - the Russian underground artist, Muscovite émigré Kabakov and the American abstract artist Rothko - were held here. Moscow will only see them in the late 2000s at Garage.

From Kabakov's "Toilet in the Corner" and "Loneliness in the Closet", which he presented to the Hermitage, we began the formation of 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 contemporary art exhibitions are held. But of the Russians, only Tselkov and Novikov. But it started off well. In 1964, they arranged an intra-museum exhibition of the works of the team, including the disgraced Mikhail Shemyakin, who was then working as a rigger.

That exhibition led to political repressions, the resignation of the director Artamonov... For a whole year they got out. It was a tragedy for the museum and for our art in general. Then it became clear how dangerous shocking is for the museum. And that the Hermitage needs its own way in dealing with contemporary art.

While we are walking around the museum, like Sokurov's "Russian Ark" - without a break, I tell Piotrovsky that for me he is, first of all, an Arabist scholar, cited extremely abundantly in my institute diploma.

I sometimes joke that an orientalist is my profession, and working here is a hobby: there can be no others with such employment. By the way, for almost eighty years the Hermitage has been headed by either orientalists or archaeologists. I'm an oriental 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 them: you live on expeditions. I was recently asked: “Why is your Islamic art department in the worst possible state?” This is true. It is inconvenient to put your interests in the foreground.

He recalls his internship in Nasser's Egypt, how he taught history to the hierarchs of the socialist South Yemen in the seventies - 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 interesting, Piotrovsky is convinced, just in the Muslim East.

Islam does not welcome the image of people, but abstractions - yes. In Dubai or Baghdad it is easier to create a contemporary art museum and it will flourish.

On the Soviet stairs of the Hermitage.

With this and his biography - born in Yerevan, great-great-great-grandfather - a 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 his and his Hermitage.

It's not a museum of art, it's a museum of world culture.

It began for Piotrovsky like this, 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 at your post? By the way, have you already decided for yourself when to retire?

Such things are decided by fate, and such questions are indecent. In 2014, the Hermitage - two hundred and fifty. In particular, a museum of the 19th and 20th centuries will open in the Eastern Wing of the General Staff building, and there will also be contemporary art - demonstrations of video art and performances. And my son, an economist, is engaged in publishing business. He also publishes books about the Hermitage. My daughter lives in Moscow, she is a banker, I consult her on all 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 - for employees, caretakers.

Since the Hermitage and family and home, what is your favorite place here now?

I'll tell you now, and then everyone will go and ask me to take pictures there. Once I went to Japan and mentioned somewhere that I like black beer. So then in all the cities where we were, the Japanese ran looking for black beer for me. And I can't drink that much. Now I'm walking - admiring the Jordan stairs. We have just restored it.

Finally we reach the Hermitage Theatre. The seven-row amphitheater is full of schoolchildren and students. "Sit in the orchestra pit," Piotrovsky suggests. From there you cannot see how he speaks, and therefore you especially listen to his words. For example, that there are no curators in the museum, 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, but that the Biennale was hosting the Hermitage. Piotrovsky is again a pillar to match the one of Alexandria.

Are you serious about the honor of hosting the Hermitage for the Biennale? I ask as we sit down in his study under a portrait of his father.

Well, this is to imbue the youth, - the director smiles. - The Hermitage at the Biennale is a different genre for us, we acted arrogantly and self-confidently. I generally like to take risks, to shock. A year ago we did an exhibition of Picasso - we have never had such a large one in the front halls. Colleagues from the Parisian museum, when they saw all these golden columns, were dumbfounded, tried to cover them. But I was against it. We do everything in such a way that, in any case, all things we have are either completely invented by us, or with a sensitive Hermitage accent.

"Apollo" by the main St. Petersburg artist of the 1990s, the founder of neo-academism Timur Novikov, was exhibited at the General Staff Building - overlooking the Alexandrian Column, Montferrand's paraphrase of Trajan's Roman column. When they decided to exhibit photography in 1998, they started (against the disapproval of critics who believed that photography did not belong next to painting) with an Irving Penn retrospective. Status portrait painter 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 black-and-white Polaroids of nude models, orchids and stars of the underground classic Robert Mapplethorpe were later brought in, they were hung interspersed with engravings by Dutch mannerists of the 16th century. Those who saw that exhibition claim that they understood where the cult of perfect bodily beauty came from, which reigned in fashion and gloss in the eighties.

Why not make a purely fashionable exhibition of costumes? Here in the Pushkin Museum they showed Chanel, Dior. And you had the last one in 1987 - a retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent...

Wrong question again! We were pioneers in this too. It's just that here, just like with contemporary art, we need our Hermitage stories. In the 2000s, we exhibited the works of Lamanova, Charles Worth: they sewed for empresses - this is our history. Or like 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 pictures of the newborn children of Leibovitz, father, life partner of Susan Sontag, including during her battle 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 everything is preserved here in that form. These walls have seen birth, growth, life and death. Where else can this be done, except for the Hermitage?