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I can't just ask two questions: why am I wearing a scarf and what is my favorite painting.
The Hermitage is a skete. For most people, this is a place to go and where to hide.
We are very ceremonious. 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 have remained. There is a king-house. And we are not exactly his servants, but we are helping 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 interconnected. Only culture stands above politics. When everything in politics collapses, culture remains the bridge between people, which is the last to blow up.
Without the exhibition in Versailles, there would have been no meeting between Putin and Macron. The new French president would not have met without a reason. Art that unites peoples always has a diplomatic function. Crises were overcome with the help of art. Let's remember 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 anger. It is clear that monuments and treasures could have been protected.
Any war in the Middle East is like a crusade. The story is known, how during the Russian-Turkish war, Catherine I collected all the jewelry, bribed the Turks, they opened the corridor, and the Russians left the encirclement. You can only fight for monuments and defend them.
The museum will never become fully virtual. Now, and without that it is full of all sorts of big top, where all the paintings of Van Gogh are shown at once. There is nothing wrong with that, except that this format cannot be called a museum, where there is the energy of a genuine thing.
We are told: here you are, you have turned to contemporary art! But this is nothing new. Emperors bought contemporary art. And the first exhibition of contemporary art was held in Petrograd in 1918 in the Winter Palace. How can we be on the sidelines 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 quickly.
There was no big excitement in connection with the Jan Fabre exhibition. There were a little more visitors, but this was incomparable with Serov or Aivazovsky, who significantly increased the attendance of the Tretyakov Gallery. The task was that Fabre was seen by those who would never have come to him.
Trust is not democracy. This is a sign of strength.
In difficult conditions, as you know, poets write good poetry, artists - good pictures, and when everything is free, not a damn thing happens.
I fully accept the existing regime. I would like not to take any positions, but sometimes it needs to be done and help. 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 the line and say something.
It would be much worse if no one was interested in your opinion.
Many processes that are taking place in society and the world today are explained by one expression: Back in the USSR. The name of the Beatles' song is very welcome. Moreover, it parodies Chuck Berry's Back in USA. And here, in St. Petersburg, we are trying to live as in the song by Simon & Garfunkel Bridge over Troubled Water (Bridge over stormy waters. - Esquire).
Petersburg must be loved at least so that it does not 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. Diversity creates perfection.
The museum is a powerful instrument of purification.
M.B. Piotrovsky, it seems, did not answer the questions about where the disappeared values \u200b\u200bwent and why the collections of masterpieces went to exhibitions without insurance.
And in general, originals or forgeries came back from the "exhibitions"? As far as it is known, no one carried out an expert examination?
We need a selective, and then a total check in 2013 of the Hermitage for the safety of the masterpieces and their authenticity, and at the same time for the entire financial and economic activities of the management of the above museum.
After that, it will be clear in what tone and on what topical issues one can speak with this strange director. "
(comment from user BigNode)
P.S. - ANECDOTE IN THE TOPIC:
DYNAMITE HISTORY
"GOD HAS BELIEVED TO STEAL",
or
TEMPTATION OF THE TERRORIST
The lackeys [of the Winter Palace], and indeed the palace servants in general, were really "worn out." 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 associates. A surprising disorder reigned in the management of the palace. The rampant theft of ministers exceeded all credibility. Khalturin's palace colleagues organized feasts, to which dozens of their acquaintances freely passed without control and supervision. While there was no free access for the highest-ranking officials from the front entrances to the palace, the back doors were open day and night to any inn-tavern friend of the last palace servant. Visitors often stayed and spent the night in the palace.
The general theft of palace property forced Khalturin to steal food supplies so as not to appear suspicious. He stole china dishes twice. However, the ministers claimed that God himself had ordered them to steal, because, for example, the palace lackeys received only 15 rubles a month ...
Theft in the palace reached such proportions that Khalturin (in a conversation with the People's Will A.A. Kvyatkovsky) wondered why the almost unguarded crown of Catherine II, which was estimated at a million rubles, which was located on the first floor of the palace, was not stolen ... “How are all these crowns and sceptres not plundered - I can't put my mind to it? ”Khalturin said.
Preparing the explosion, Khalturin demanded from the Executive Committee of "Narodnaya Volya" to help with various intelligence information, and most importantly, to supply it with dynamite.
Pavel Kann.
Walk from the Summer Palace to the Winter Palace
along the Palace Embankment of St. Petersburg.
SPb., "Petrogradskiy and K °", 1996, pp. 180-181.
WHY DIRECTOR OF THE HERMITAGE M. PIOTROVSKY,
SPECIALIST IN ISLAM AND QURAN,
DOES NOT ALLOW CHRISTIANS
PRAY IN THE WINTER PALACE CHURCHES?
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 in the days of the persecutor of Christians, the sadist Roman emperor Nero, which legally - by decree of the President of Russia - demands release from "Worldly exhibitions" temples of the official residence of the Russian Emperors (houses of the heads of the Russian state - emperors and empresses) - the Winter Palace.
Christians urge to fulfill the Presidential Decrees on the return of Christian worship items to the Russian Orthodox Church. Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum, does not pay attention to the legal requirements of the Orthodox, he does not want to fulfill the decrees of the President of Russia.
Why?
As a former hereditary atheist communist?
Or for some other reason?
Or citizen MB Piotrovsky, who has ascended "very high", has no time to pay attention to the "standing below" Orthodox Petersburgers, because 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 Preservation of Monuments, Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg University, Professor of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of St. Petersburg University, Head of the Department of History of the Ancient East of the Eastern Faculty of St. Petersburg University, Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies 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 for UNESCO, laureate of the President of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art, and so on and so forth ...
But so far he, M.B. Piotrovsky, is not yet a museum emperor! - about which the rector of St. Petersburg State University Nikolai Mikhailovich Kropachev does not yet know, who provides M. B. more and more new positions ...
Is it possible that the former communist atheist comrade, and now Mr. M.B. Piotrovsky, is such a genius that, being officially in the responsible state service of the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, he can simultaneously perform responsible work in other positions - ten 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, who wears his invariable scarf around his neck and personifies the ideological trend of "elegant scarf with short lean Caucasian legs" in Russian political thought, can simultaneously, in addition to being a general director 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 Grigorievich 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 receive money as the general director of the State Hermitage Museum, being the “editor” and “compiler”, the author of “prefaces” and “afterwords”? Perhaps he hands them over to pensioners - the caretakers of the halls, junior researchers and employees of the Hermitage, who receive a meager salary? Give them a list of those who have benefited!
But why is this happening?
Is he a very rich man?
On the nose is the fiftieth anniversary of the reign (1964-2014) of the Piotrovskys' house in the State Hermitage, about which a special book has been written by the doctor-cantor, “The Hermitage. Piotrovskie ”(St. Petersburg, 2004, 170 p.), Timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the dismissal from the post of director of the Hermitage in 1964 by the outstanding scientist and archaeologist Mikhail Illarionovich Artamonov (1898-1972).
Artamonov's resignation was due to the exhibition activities of the notorious Shemyakin Mishka, who is now abroad, a provocateur from art (as he was called in Saigon).
As you know, Professor and Academician Piotrovsky was not involved in the death of Larisa Zavadskaya, who robbed the funds of the State Hermitage Museum (this has been 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 the working museum post!
A thief or thieves stole exhibits worth hundreds of millions of rubles from the funds of the State Hermitage Museum. Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Professor and Corresponding Member, for this largest theft in the history of the Hermitage, which soon, in 2014, will turn a quarter of a millennium, was only reprimanded by the talker on various occasions and on the Kultura channel »The former Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy.
By the way, the former relative of Piotrovsky M.B. Dementyeva Natasha (the former wife of his cousin) was under Yeltsin the Minister of Culture and distinguished herself at the burial of Yeltsin's so-called "Yekaterinburg 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 Shvydkoy, who was castled with Natasha, who, already being a minister, announced to Piotrovsky MB. for the "exploits" of the thief Larisa Zavadskaya only a reprimand.
But for the same offenses (oversight of theft), Defense Minister Serdyukov has recently lost his high place ... Mikhail Piotrovsky is "sitting"! Let's add, still ...
"World Citizen of St. Petersburg", supporting a small clique in the form of a virtual "World Club of Petersburgers", an international and Russian order bearer, listed as honorary citizens of St. Petersburg, Mr. M.B. Piotrovsky fools the head of his superiors with unctuous songs, tales and jokes about the "cultural heritage and the unrivaled role of the Hermitage in the history of Russia."
In general, not Dostoevsky - a symbol of Russian culture, but Piotrovsky!
However, as you know, the concept of culture, like any other category, is the desired one, which creates the basis 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 promoter 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. Piotrovsky, a Soviet hero of socialist labor and an order bearer (three Orders of Lenin and one of the October Revolution, three Labor Red Banners; there are also other awards from regional committee of the CPSU, which approved the lists of awards), a member of the regional committee of the CPSU, who was fooling about "the bright future of all mankind - communism"!
I would also like to ask: who runs the information site 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 fail to recall the words of Adlai Stevenson, who once said to one gentleman like this:
“IF YOU DON'T STOP LYING ABOUT ME
- I WILL NOT STOP SPEAKING THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU!
... WILL IT BE PERMITTED SO
PERMANENT SERVICES
In the desecrated by the communists
ORTHODOX CHURCHES
THE IMPERIAL WINTER PALACE?
IT REALLY STILL DEPENDS
FORMER ATHEIST COMMUNIST
PIOTROVSKOGO M.B. ?
Interior view
Great Church of the Winter Palace
in St. Petersburg
The first "philosophy of rest" of Mikhail Piotrovsky to me on the occasion was once told by his son Boris: you can't make you rest, you can't pull out, a stack of books in front of the sofa and nothing else is needed.
House difference
I don't like dacha? - asks Piotrovsky. - Well, perhaps the dacha of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, when it took weeks to get ready, 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 summer I try to spend the night here whenever possible. We have no special summer cottage activities. Take a walk in the forest (here the forest is interesting), go to the sea. But the main thing for me in the country is to sit by the large window and look at the lawn.
This is a lawn, ”his beautiful wife clarifies.
And in my opinion, a lawn, - the owner answers with not so easily surrendering masculine stubbornness. - And this is a completely different matter than looking at the tapestry in the Hermitage study. Blueberries grow here on the site. Boris comes here more often. We meet in the late evenings, we leave. In the city, after all, the beauty of meetings is not the same, but at the dacha a triumph of return is possible: the gates open, and at the gates there is a man.
I experienced it myself, the gates opened, you stepped into the kingdom of pines, birches and blueberries, and the owners - with a light 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 place of the old Leningrad academic dachas. After the war and the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars "On the construction of summer cottages for full members of the USSR Academy of Sciences," a plot of land in the Kellomäki dacha was donated "into 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 manage to live at the dacha. Akhmatova, Shostakovich, Likhachev, Schwartz, Cherkasov, Srugatskys, Germans lived and rested 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, who, by right of his four-year-old neighbor, often came to the Likhachevs' dacha. (“Ira, don’t worry if she doesn’t have supper in the evening,” Likhachev’s daughter whispered to the boy’s mother, he ate two cutlets with pleasure ”). 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 pick blueberries to the place where their dacha now stands.
"I can imagine the difference between my house and Piotrovsky's house," the summer resident who had received me before said ironically. “You can't imagine,” I laughed. Piotrovsky's dacha is directly perpendicular to the inertial-negative cliché of philistine ideas - it is one-story, organic to the surrounding forest, an optimal haven for an intellectual who has never lost his way in anything unnecessary. And the son's house in the corner of the lot is the same.
Time to think
The owner is on vacation, and is just busy with the main dacha business - he sits at a table in front of a large window, looks at the lawn and continues to justify the dacha in his eyes.
It is good to think strategically in the country. Leisurely. And write slowly. Something not urgent. I am now writing "Director's Choice". This is such a project for directors of world museums - to choose 30 things and paintings, but not favorite ones, but those that you want to tell about. Of my favorites, there will be one. And so, for example, I have already chosen "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 in the past, now they drive motorcycles, build something all the time, build 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, of course, no fences, but electronic security on all 40 hectares, try to enter. Nobody wants an invasion of privacy.
At the dacha, of course, there is a partial switching, 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 certainly knows how to do this (in a minute - and without ignoring the opinion 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 walks over to the table, opens the diary - the long blue marker line has already marked "time to think" in it.
But he has hard thoughts.
About the fact that recently, for some reason, the number of - almost Soviet - prohibitions, 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 the remark from the ministry "You underestimated financial risks" has to be written directly that the main risks of the Hermitage are associated with receiving money from the state and embezzlement, "consecrated" (if you look closely) just by officials ...
The Hermitage is a place where, no matter how dreary it is, they are ready to give 150 direct and hard-hitting answers to the endless orders of the ministry. For example, the fact that the reporting required by the ministry is easily falsified, and the theft takes place precisely at the level of bureaucratic state reporting. That the "electronic accounting" imposed from above is the easiest to fake. That failure to take into account the peculiarities of such a museum as the Hermitage is dangerous.
Further, his slow "dacha" thought goes into conspiracy - but he certainly has a right to it, because he is well aware of it. Behind the almost toxic (due to bureaucracy) behavior of the state - pushing museums towards private forms of existence. Behind the habitual "You report poorly, keep poorly, your storerooms are bursting, let us give orders," can't someone's plan for a museum redistribution be hidden? In favor of private traders or poor provincial museums?
And just let me touch the museum collection ... In the 1920s, everything began with innocent revisions, but quickly getting a taste for commanding culture, officials sold thousands of exhibits from the Hermitage abroad. Yesterday - for all taboos, and today - withdrawals and sales at auctions.
For all 25 years of being a director, Piotrovsky sees the main threat in the assassination attempt on the collection, and connects everything with it - the strange checks 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 New Western Art in Moscow for account of the Hermitage.
While the president’s famous joke “even come to Piotrovsky with a rifle - he will still not give anything from the museum” - fixes his correctness and victory.
Do not believe in the great danger? But listen - one event carefully seen by Mikhail Piotrovsky. “Here came the law on import-export. We (the Union of Museums) first took part in its discussion, and then we were pushed aside and very powerfully brought it through the State Duma (the Duma Committee on Culture objected, but in vain). There are many good things, but in addition to them, it was facilitated ... the export of cultural property from Russia. And besides, when exhibitions from abroad come to us, to state museums, we now have to pay various customs duties, which we had not paid before. The Ministry of Culture gave us a certificate "these things culture, from them so-and-so not to take "and the new law has now limited the ministry" 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) acquired something, while the state ones lost what they had. Meanwhile, it is the culture protected by the state that needs privileges - both tax and moral.
So what Piotrovsky thinks about slowly is really hard to think about.
Realizing that Mikhail Borisovich most likely would not let me go to the dacha, if I, in the limit, were only interested in dacha life, flowers-butterflies, I still risk emerging from the regime of his difficult slow thoughts and ask a simple question to Irina Leonidovna "And dacha did you come up with? "
Yes, she is, - Mikhail Borisovich is not going to give in to his wife. - All of it - from the idea to the great management of the construction site.
Are you not 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 do. In general, I like everything that Irina Leonidovna does (you should have heard how beautifully it was said. - Approx. Auth.). This is all dictated by the concern that we all feel good. But first of all - to me. First she takes care of me - then about the children. (Calmly-calmly, 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 7 of the most symbolic and characteristic things on it. I personally would be the first to include the painting "Boy in a Scarf" hanging above the stairs in the collection of seven symbolic things in the country. ("The work of Alexander Zadorin, - clarifies Irina Leonidovna. - And this is Mishin's portrait").
"The theme of the scarf", yes, cult for Piotrovsky ("You are taking pictures of me - and I am without a scarf?"), But not at the dacha. The fact is that at temperatures above 23 degrees, he takes off his scarf, but today (and indeed often) at the dacha 29. But Zadorin's picture is wonderful.
Mikhail Borisovich intercepts our initiative to search for the seven things that speak most about him.
Firstly, this is a pile of books, which I slowly - page by page - read at the dacha. I drop one and start another. Sometimes I watch a movie in parallel. I read, for example, "Fima" by Amos Oz and immediately watch "Fouda", the famous Israeli TV series about terror.
I know one secret of Mikhail Piotrovsky's reading for sure: in the stack of books he reads there will definitely be one about economics and finance, the last time he called "The Black Swan" by Nasim Taleb, now - I guessed it, there is a book - this is "Odysseus against Ferrets" by Georg von Walwitz - 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 Kazerooni - an absolutely wonderful book on the creation of museums in the Persian Gulf - I need my next report. The book "The State or the Price of Order" by the new rector of the European University Vadim Volkov is also worth your attention. "The Suffering Middle Ages" is now read by everyone. "The history of the state of the Lakhmids" - about the pre-Islamic Arabs, that's what I just read on the page. "Cold Summer" - a word-by-word commentary on Mandelstam's prose. And at the very bottom - always! - the book of the eternal return, "St. Petersburg Tales" by Gogol. I have another stack of books on the second floor, would you like to show me?
In the new pack "Envy" by Olesha, "Abnormal" by Michel Foucault, "In Memory of Catalonia" by Orwell and ... "Flowers of Francis of Assisi".
Borya went here to Italy and, once in Assisy, joined in the pilgrimage to St. Francis. But we were calm for him: former seminarian Sergei Shnurov explained to him what is possible and not allowed in Catholicism.
The story turned out to be quite serious. When there was an exhibition of Fabre in the Hermitage and discontent of the "people" appeared, the museum wondered 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, his own - but the necessary words, and the exhibition was relatively calm. The strength of the buffoonery culture - and the buffoon is almost always smart - is great within a rigorous situation.
But, pay attention, the only table that I manage to keep empty, - Mikhail Borisovich continues the excursion. ("Irina Leonidovna insisted?", "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 only today are the papers, because I am writing. This knife for cutting book pages was presented to me by our ambassador in Oman, I was very afraid that they would take it away from me at the border, it looks like a dagger.
Irina Leonidovna and I offer, as a symbol of the house, portraits of great mathematicians - Newton, Descartes, Laplace, Euler, which were still hanging in the house of Mikhail Borisovich's grandfather, an artilleryman and teacher of mathematics, the author of excellent textbooks. I am interested in bright rosary. Mikhail Borisovich accompanies each of our discoveries with a story, a plot.
I brought the Lebanese Christian rosary, and my dad from Oceania brought the shell rosary.
The things of the late father are a separate "topic". On the second floor, in the most honorable place, there is an old typewriter presented to his father for his 50th birthday, and Piotrovsky asks to include it in 7 symbolic things at home. As well as the restored (Irina Leonidovna did this) antique armchair in front of the table.
And also necessarily - a dollhouse from your office. It was made by a very large art dealer; many famous directors of world museums have such dollhouses.
The tabletop 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, she was not allowed to open it because of the threat of a terrorist attack. And the queen said, "Then all come to me," her palace was opposite. The Queen didn’t often live in the palace, didn’t really know where her glasses were, and she opened the cabinets with keys. Recently, at a meeting with Piotrovsky (she is now retired queen), I recalled this. And he keeps the tabletop Amsterdam Royal Palace, presented to him in memory of this. And this is definitely a symbolic thing of his house.
Maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but a miniature - with a little finger - chair breathes its history, one of those made by Valery Fokin's theater, recreating the famous Meyerhold's "Masquerade".
I'm starting to think that Piotrovsky has no thing in his house without a story - all the rosary beads are from Oceania, all the chairs are from Meyerhold. The baskets on the floor, where it is convenient to put both books and a bottle of wine, for example, were "spied" in the house of the Italian publisher Leonardo Montadori. (“The richest man,” recalls Irina Leonidovna, “but he kept magnificent books like this, in baskets, and we liked this idea”).
Piotrovsky draws our attention to the icon - this is St. John (Steblin-Kamensky), the new martyr and confessor of Russia, who was shot in 1930 near Voronezh. He is the ancestor in his youth of the best friend of Piotrovsky, a famous linguist, Iranianist, academician Ivan Steblin-Kamensky, who died in May this year.
The icon was presented to me by my wife and daughter Vanya. His daughter is an icon painter.
The cult of personality
We have, of course, a cult of personality here, says Piotrovsky, showing the doll 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 that drew ("The Hermitage does not miss such crazy things"), a comic birthday congratulation received by the owner from the European University "To you, boyar and chief judge of the sovereign Yermitazhny ... "
But the jokes run out quickly, and I want to carefully look at the old notebooks, in which his sketches of ancient Yemeni inscriptions and drawings, which he did as a member and leader of the famous Yemeni scientific expedition, remained. Judging by the modern war in Yemen, this may be their only repository in the world, and then these notebooks are not worth it. A book should be written about this. But scientific.
This actually slows me down, - says Mikhail Borisovich, sitting down at the table on the terrace. - Scientific work requires deep immersion in all sorts of comparative materials, and there is no time for that.
Irina Leonidovna brings other, no less interesting notebooks - in them the last drawings of her husband. "This is the" Sacrifice of Abraham "- explains, while my eyes are confused in unusual lines, - and this is" Madonna ".
I am trying to challenge his method of "ragged reading" - on a page from different books. This is the same "clip thinking", the scourge of the modern world and consciousness.
But when you read a little, you just start to read and think slowly, - he objects. - Ira, why is there no sugar on the table?
We have no sugar in our house. I put the candy on.
How is it that we have no sugar in our house? - goes to the kitchen and returns with a bowl full of two kinds of sugar.
Are you hiding sugar from me ?! - the wife is surprised, and a calmly-loving dialogue about the benefits and dangers of sugar begins, consisting of half of views and, it seems, is the best test on the topic of whether you see your family in front of you or not.
When, before leaving, we stand with Mikhail Borisovich at the gate, and Irina Leonidovna is closing the house and quietly walking towards us along the path, I will tell him that I will never cease to be amazed at the art of being a wife - to be silent when there is something to say, to remember the most important thing, but concerning her husband, and not you, to give up her own for the sake of her husband's interests (Irina Leonidovna worked in the Committee for Foreign Economic Relations of St. Petersburg under the supervision of the then Vice-Mayor Vladimir Putin, she succeeded, and she could have had a stunning career).
I think being a wife is a talent, says Piotrovsky. - Moreover, congenital.
Boris arrives for lunch at a country restaurant on the Sestra River. Fit, cheerful, happy. He says that he gave two interviews, shows a new video shot on a mobile phone.
Self-confident, - says after dinner half-admiring, half-shy Mikhail Borisovich.
Yes, no, just confident, we object.
Yes, perhaps, self-confidence is important, - Piotrovsky agrees already in the car.
My summer cottage day with the great museum worker of the world will end absolutely not with a summer cottage. An exhibition "Furniture for all body quirks" opens in the Hermitage. It will be opened by the deputy director, since the director is on vacation, but Piotrovsky at the exhibition with the persistence of wasps making an invasion of the dacha Komarovo this year will be stuck around by all kinds of people. But Irina Leonidovna still manages to fight wasps, but here, like with sugar ...
And then the office, where it is necessary to urgently answer the letters of the "genius actress" Helen Mirren with a request to allow her 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) whether 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, I can only retreat.
Irina Piotrovskaya, the wife of the director of the Hermitage, one of the most famous Russian managers, works as a project director at Tatyana Parfenova's Fashion House. We spoke to her on a Friday afternoon in the production section, far from the minimalist windows of the Fashion House. While they were talking, Mikhail Borisovich called his wife twice - a summer cottage 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 both with the city and with one of the best museums in the world?
-- Difficult. Very hard. This person grew up in a special environment, from childhood he revolved in a certain circle of people, a certain mind and position. He only became a little more than a table and helped his father - he worked on an archeological expedition in Armenia (Boris Piotrovsky - director of the Hermitage in 1964-1990 - Ed.). When he was 18 years old and he studied at the oriental faculty, he was already translating for very high government delegations. In general, it is difficult to measure yourself next to him.
How does Mikhail Borisovich fight his personality cult?
- Absolutely not fighting: there is no cult. Maybe because he is a rather private person. And his ability to behave is not a deliberate "ah, sorry", "let me pass" ... He is tactful with everyone. Stars - on television alone, at home others, third, tenth. Piotrovsky is the same everywhere.
And yet, in Russia, the personality cult is difficult to avoid for those who get into power, or for those whose word means a lot to power.
- I think a lot depends on the environment in which a person works. For example, this very cult is more likely to be created for Putin. I worked with Putin for 6 years. We started together when he was recruiting a team to the Committee on External Relations. The most difficult years, when there was bread left in the city for 5 days ... We were spinning so crazy, crazy. I am an international specialist, I graduated from financial and economic, monetary and financial relations in Moscow, the specifics are Arab countries. Here, in St. Petersburg, there were no specialists in market relations. Putin himself recruited people - there was a strong, good team. A person is created by his environment.
Is your spouse attracted to making business decisions?
- At home, everything is equal. I help him whenever possible. As for work, I never interfere in his affairs. This is not the kind of business when a husband, for example a restaurant director, advises on how to change something in the business. The Hermitage is too huge a machine.
Is your son Boris currently working on the Hermitage website?
- He is a fourth-year student in Fineck at the Faculty of Management. When Borya was little, Boris Borisovich brought him a set-top box for the TV. Then no one had such. And when he was 10 years old, he already had excellent computer skills. When he was in the last grades of school, a computer department appeared in the Hermitage. When his 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, did you influence your son?
- We wanted him to go to the oriental faculty, like our daughter, who graduated from the Arab department, but now works at the Dresdner Bank in Moscow, heads the department of foreign exchange operations. It turns out that I, as a financier, influenced her, plus several languages \u200b\u200bthat she knows thanks to the oriental faculty. She is a hard-working girl. Married.
Did you want to send Boris to study abroad?
- My son will graduate from university next year, he teaches two languages \u200b\u200b- English and French. But to study abroad? Mashenka left home, and I don't want to let go of my second child. Suddenly he will stay there. He still needs to be pushed on trips. We tell him: Borya, you need a language, you need to see how people work.
And you, as a Muscovite, immediately felt well in St. Petersburg? After all, you are in a family with strong Petersburg traditions. How do you like it here?
- I still can't get used to the city. In the family, of course, everything was great. Well, how can it not be great when Boris Borisovich is next to you! Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky was an amazing person. Outwardly Misha looks more like his mother, and inwardly he looks more like his father. But more dynamic. Now I'm used to Petersburg. But when I come to Moscow ... I would like to live in Moscow. Moscow absorbs everything faster. In St. Petersburg - nobility, delicacy, tranquility. And I miss the dynamics. And I can't stand it when the Petersburgers themselves say "Peter". It went like that.
What do you remember from the Petersburg traditions of the Piotrovsky family?
- When Borenka was little, Mikhail Borisovich's mother made us walk with the children. I didn’t want to walk. We came to the Hermitage and walked through the halls. I put my son on my hip, and so we walked, looked for hours. I didn’t tell Bora: look at the picture, the author is such and such, remember. No. I began to watch Boreas - 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 passions. There is one picture, he called it "Kapochka", in the Spanish hall, I forgot the author. He approached her as if he were alive, and even talked to her. Then they returned home, and he said: "oh, mom, Kapochka has come."
The 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 Delovoy Petersburg that he had signed some kind of agreement. This morning at 8.15 I watched his live broadcast and learned in this way what was happening in the Hermitage. Sometimes I think: how cool it is! This is not discussed at home: if a person comes every day at 11 or 12 o'clock in the morning, he needs a rest. And then I will pester you: what is interesting about you, tell me ...
Home is the family's fortress?
- Absolutely. And no unnecessary people, teas, calls. I try to protect him somehow. He needs a break from people.
Does Mikhail Borisovich correspond to the image of an oriental person?
- No, although maybe he is a bearer of the oriental 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 was the only one who knew about this in advance - but he slept peacefully on the plane. Then they brought us to the embassy, \u200b\u200bsettled in, we will figure it out, they say. We were given some pennies, and we decided to spend them entirely on museums. Mikhail Borisovich immediately took us into circulation and led us - it was so exciting!
How does your family rest?
- Every year we dream of spending 3 weeks outside the city in our Komarovo. But it never works. Such is the dream. Stay together, sleep, relax.
How did you get to Tatiana Parfenova?
- It happened by accident. We knew Tatyana before, when I was still working in Smolny. After those huge, powerful problems that we had to work on in the Committee on Foreign Relations, this is a completely different world. I work as a project director. Visiting ready-to-wear shows should have an economic impact, not just good newspaper coverage.
Whose idea is it to sell Tatyana Parfenova's embroidered scarves in the Hermitage?
-- Not mine. It was solved without me. I watch on TV: my husband is standing with Tatyana Parfenova - and both are happy. She is a worthy designer, worthy of her products being sold in the Hermitage. Foreigners buy her things willingly. Tanya really feels fashion, feels it for about a year in advance.
Who dresses Mikhail Borisovich?
- Basically, of course, I advise something. Both here and on trips. But this happens with screams, scandals, he does not want to go - it's a terrible thing to drag him into the store, force him to try on something. Scarves? Somehow they themselves took root. He buys them, I buy them. I even had the impression that it had something to do with the Arab world. He says he dreams in Arabic. Arabs, Bedouins cover their faces with scarves. He was once the head of an international expedition to Yemen. And then in the photo I saw him wearing a scarf for the first time. Maybe this is something unconscious, in no way borrowed, for example, from Italian or French fashion. He even sits in a dacha in a shirt and a scarf around his neck. He says he's so comfortable.
Where do you dress?
- I really like Tanya Parfenova's clothes, especially a business suit. I practically don't wear skirts - only trousers. Where I worked before, I needed a white shirt and jacket. I got used to him. And Tanya also makes elegant costumes. I love.
In your general family employment, who is in charge of the home? Do you use the services of interior designers to decorate your home or summer residence?
- I can't imagine that Mikhail Borisovich brought the designer and he said: hang this here, and put that there. Maybe there is such a designer, but I cannot imagine him in our house. Once upon a time we went to Cash in an antique store with pleasure, bought some things. This is how the house slowly took shape.
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 - there is simply nowhere to keep them. There are no books in the rooms. Where people rest, they are not there - otherwise you can go crazy.
Why do they love Piotrovsky?
- He is a man of amazing nobility and decency. And this cannot but be appreciated. In the Hermitage, everything he does is for people: so that people go to the Hermitage. Well, we will cancel the discounts for children, we will win a penny. If the 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 well. Today they laugh, tomorrow they think - it's very important.
The State Hermitage is celebrating two anniversaries this year: the 250th anniversary of the museum and the 70th anniversary of its director Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky. Under his leadership, a world-famous museum has been operating for 22 years.
However, Piotrovsky is known not only as the head of the museum, but also as a public figure. His opinion is always listened to, he is able to influence the adoption of any decisions concerning the life of the city. Over the years of his active work, Mikhail Borisovich has given dozens of interviews. On the birthday of the director of the Hermitage, the site collected his statements about literature, art and the legendary scarf, which can always be seen thrown over the shoulders of an orientalist historian.
Interest in art
Our task is to teach a person to understand art. The understanding of beauty is formed from childhood. Therefore, we are glad to both children and students who are ready to spend a lot of time in the museum. This is important because people (as we have already seen) have lost the ability to conduct discussions. They seek to impose their own opinion and reject someone else's. Because of this, the colorful world becomes black and white, and society requires people with a complex perception of life. I'm not just talking about art: it is a condition for our survival in the 21st century. I am convinced that when people do not see the difficulties, rockets start falling. (Hermitage website)
About efficiency
Learn to see the beauty in the little things. We are accustomed to thinking globally, everyone dreams of making a million, he disagrees for less, that's why he sits on the stove and does nothing. This is a genuine national tragedy! (Results .ru)
About alternative and erotica
We need to provide an alternative in the form of good and interesting products. Then nobody will be interested in nonsense. Nobody watches pornography for a long time, because it becomes boring. But everyone loves and watches beautiful erotica. (Interview Magazine)
Mikhail Piotrovsky: "Our task is to teach a person to understand art." Photo: www.globallookpress.com
About the imperial state
In the empire, the peoples, on the one hand, feel bad, and on the other, good. They are involved in her great tasks and great fame. Let's not forget that the empire always prides itself on the fact that it consists of many peoples and is proud of its real cultural diversity. The Louvre, the Hermitage, the British Museum were born of empires and are happy to collect things and objects of art from different civilizations and cultures. The empire knows how to admire all this. And it is through the imperial museums that people often master "their" culture and understand "their" civilization. The clarity of imperial principles - freedom of faith, language, culture to some point, and then - the power of the emperor kept the peace. (RG.ru)
About the crisis
In a crisis, everyone starts going to the museum, the number of visitors increases dramatically. And so everywhere in the world. You cannot buy a new car, but you can often go to the museum and enjoy it. They walk and walk. Either there is nowhere to go, or they are looking for a reason for optimism. (Forbes.ru)
Literature
I think that the Strugatsky brothers were the best writers of our era, of our youth, and in general all Russian literature then came out of science fiction, because everyone is writing famous contemporary writers, they write science fiction, but only it is less interesting than what they wrote Strugatsky. It was both lofty literature and fascinating literature. (Echo of Moscow)
About the legendary scarf
My wife believes that the scarf came from my addiction to the Bedouins, like an Arabist's workwear. I only take it off when they give me orders. And one more case was, at the opening of the session of the British Parliament, where the queen is. A wife can wear a scarf, but I can't. Their vaunted democracy falls short of ours. (Tatler Magazine)
Mikhail Piotrovsky: “During the crisis, everyone starts going to the museum, the number of visitors increases dramatically. And so everywhere in the world. " Photo: www.globallookpress.com
The origins of management
Archeology is the discipline that, during the Soviet era, combined management, finding money, science, and clever financial reporting. So, with my archaeological experience, it is easier for me to get used to the market, which, for all that, should still be regulated. Than? Yes, probably with conscience. (Teacher's newspaper)
About provocations
Provocation, conflict are taught to think. And feel. If nothing touches you, there will be no penetration, no pairing with art. The museum should teach thinking and make you argue. Avant-garde art was born out of conflict. (News time)
About art appreciation
Since a thing is in a museum, it means art. How to handle art and even what is extremist and what is non-extremist, what is indecent and what is decent - only museums are the ultimate judges here. (AiF)
About authenticity
People stand in line for hours at the Hermitage, although any picture can be perfectly seen on a computer screen or in a book. But in the museum, everyone understands that they see a genuine thing, and this is a special impression. It is very necessary for people in today's world, where you do not know what and how to believe. (IA Rosbalt)
Mikhail Piotrovsky: "Provocation, conflict are taught to think." Photo: www.globallookpress.com
About urban space
The worst changes in the city are not even related to architecture. This is a huge amount of cars that foul the city. These "cockroaches", which are everywhere and because of which the city is not visible. Sometimes on some day off they are not, and suddenly you see what a beauty around! (Evening Petersburg)
About tourism
Tourism is generally a very corrupting thing, including for the state. We know dozens of countries, including Egypt, that tried to live on the service of visiting foreigners. In this regard, I like even more what Iraq has done. Monuments, ancient cities were restored there, cultural heritage was preserved, but above all for its citizens. (Expert North-West)
About icons
An icon in a museum is a work of a talented author, and in a church it is an object and a way of worship: there is no time to delve into the nuances and admire the work of the master. The Hermitage, like the Tretyakov Gallery, contains thousands of icons. And with each, I assure you, you can make a full copy, and then consecrate it and pray. (AiF)
Public opinion
I am a scientist, and therefore I am skeptical about any kind of public opinion polls. And I absolutely do not believe in the reliability of statistical calculations. The broad masses, if you work with them correctly, will say what is expected of them. (