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It is one of the most visited art museums in the world. At the end of 2016, more than 4 million people visited it. This is one of the most significant, from a cultural and historical point of view, museum in Russia. Once upon a time, only a select few got here, even Pushkin was not immediately allowed in, and then bomb shelters were set up in the basements of the museum and the collections were sold for pennies and given away to “friends” of the Soviet regime.
Hermitages for private excursions
The history of the Hermitage began in 1764, when Catherine II bought a collection of 225 paintings from the Berlin merchant Gotzkowsky. At first they were placed in the Winter Palace. But the empress got a taste for it and continued buying paintings, sculptures, and coins.
Hanging Garden, Small Hermitage. Photo: hermitagemuseum.org
All this wealth had to be placed somewhere. And at the behest of the Empress, an extension was erected near the Winter Palace - a place for secluded relaxation with a front door, living rooms and a greenhouse. This is how the Small Hermitage appeared, in the longitudinal galleries of which works from the very acquired collection were placed. Translated from French, the Hermitage is a place of solitude, a hermit’s shelter. Actually, in France small pavilions at palaces were called hermitages. AND Catherine's Hermitage was conceived as a place where the empress and her entourage could enjoy art in privacy.
But the idea has outgrown itself. The imperial collection was replenished year after year. For example, in 1769 alone, 600 paintings by the Saxon minister Brühl were purchased. The Small Hermitage alone was no longer enough for all this splendor. And by order of Catherine II, the Great Hermitage was erected next to the Small Hermitage - a three-story building created by the architect Feuilleton in the style of classicism.
During the reign of Catherine II, the Hermitage collection was replenished with works by Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Michelangelo and other masters. There were even special agents working abroad who bought works of art for the Hermitage.
Great Hermitage, hall spanish painting, late XIX century.
Photo: pastvu.com
Hermitage cat. Photo: life-spb.rf
Speaking about the history of the Hermitage during the period of Catherine II, it is unforgivable to remain silent about the famous Hermitage cats. It is believed that cats were brought to the territory of the Winter Palace to prevent the breeding of rats. Then the Hermitage appeared, and although its creator Catherine did not really like cats, she decided to leave them as guards art galleries. Cats lived in the Hermitage after the revolutions, under Soviet rule, and were especially useful after the war, when it was necessary to intensively fight the proliferation of rodents. Cats live in the Hermitage to this day. True, they are not allowed to enter the museum halls. And in 2016, the Telegraph publication added the Hermitage cats to the list of unusual attractions that need to be seen.
How the Hermitage became public
During the reign of Alexander I, the Hermitage collection was replenished with works of Italian, Flemish and Dutch schools. In the era of Nicholas I, who cared about his image, as they would say now, and who was passionate about military affairs, the Military Gallery of 1812 was created in 1826. It consisted of portraits of generals, field marshals, princes, emperors - everyone who distinguished themselves during the war.
By the way, it was Nicholas I who turned the Hermitage into a public museum. Before this common man there was no chance of getting there. Even Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was allowed into the Hermitage only on the recommendation of Zhukovsky, who was the mentor of the imperial son.
Military gallery of 1812. Photo: pastvu.com
New Hermitage, 1970s. Photo: pastvu.com
So, in 1852 the opening of the Imperial Museum of the New Hermitage took place. The New Hermitage building was open to visitors. But again, the openness turned out to be relative: you had to get a ticket at the palace office, which was not accessible to everyone. In addition, a dress code was introduced for visitors: a uniform or a tailcoat.
The new Hermitage, distinguished by great luxury, was the first building in Russia specifically created for an art museum. The ground floor houses a collection of antiquities, and the second floor houses an art gallery. Thirty years later, attendance at the Hermitage reached 50 thousand people a year.
The second half of the 19th century was remembered for the creation of the Pavilion Hall (one of the most spectacular interiors of the Hermitage), ceremonial interiors Great Hermitage, the acquisition of paintings by Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, the transfer of the Tsarskoye Selo Arsenal (collection of armor and weapons) to the Hermitage and the replenishment of the museum with works of Russian painters.
20th century: sale, evacuation and long recovery
Surprisingly, the Hermitage was not badly damaged during the revolutionary events. The Hermitage employees did not resist and announced the acceptance of the new government and the continuation of the museum’s work. But visitors were temporarily refused.
Pavilion Hall, 1959. Photo: pastvu.com
Evacuation of the Hermitage collection, 1917. Photo: pastvu.com
However, in September 1917, the Provisional Government announced the nationalization of the palaces and created a commission to accept the valuables of the Winter Palace; part of the collection was evacuated to Moscow. And after October Revolution The Hermitage, in fact, like the Winter Palace, became state museums. The valuables evacuated to Moscow returned, and visitors also returned; admission was free for five years after the revolution.
For the Hermitage, the years 1920-1930 were controversial. On the one hand, there was a nationalization of private collections. This is how the museum received collections of Byzantine coins, icons, ancient documents, and the Kushelev Gallery with paintings by Rousseau, Dean, and Delacroix.
On the other hand, at this time the role of St. Petersburg, which was traditionally considered the imperial capital, was wanted to be reduced in favor of the new capital - Moscow. And this new capital I needed my own too big museum with a large collection of works of art. This place has become the current State Museum fine arts named after A.S. Pushkin. As a result, about 500 paintings were transferred to Moscow from the Hermitage.
A blow to the Hermitage at this time was the literal squandering of the museum’s valuables. Huge number paintings were taken to European auctions, and the Soviet government gave away the museum’s collections to foreign political partners or businessmen with whom they needed to maintain relations.
The Great Patriotic War prepared the next test for the museum. As soon as the war began, about a million works of art were evacuated from the Hermitage to the Urals. The museum staff took care of the exhibits, and not a single one of them went missing during the entire evacuation.
Empty halls of the Hermitage during the evacuation, 1941.
Photo: pastvu.com
Return of works of art from evacuation to the Hermitage, 1945.
Photo: foto-history.livejournal.com
But it was not possible to remove some of the collections from Leningrad - the blockade began. There were units in the Hermitage civil defense, and in the museum basements there are 12 bomb shelters. But the museum was still badly damaged by bombing. At the end of the war, some halls were restored within a few months, while others, damaged by artillery shells and bombs, had to be put in order for several years. A pleasant post-war gift was the transfer to the Hermitage of more than 300 paintings from the Museum of the New Western European art. Among these paintings were works by Monet, Gauguin, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse and other artists.
The Hermitage breaks records
In 1988, the Hermitage was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest art gallery in the world.
After the collapse of the USSR, the Hermitage directed efforts to replenish its collections with works of the 20th century. This, to some extent, helped international Club Friends of the Hermitage, founded in 1996 to support restoration projects and programs for the acquisition of new exhibits. And in 2006 they launched the “Hermitage 20/21” project, the goal of which was to attract attention to contemporary art.
To see all the exhibits of the Hermitage, you need to walk more than 20 km. And if you linger at each exhibit for even a minute, it will take 11 years.
Now the museum’s collection includes about three million works of art: paintings, sculptures, archaeological finds, graphics, etc. The Hermitage hosts exhibitions, scientific conferences, and master classes. There are huge queues at the museum (especially on the first Thursday of the month, when admission is free).
But St. Petersburg alone was not enough for the Hermitage, and representative offices of the museum began to open in other cities and countries. For example, Centers State Hermitage there are already in Kazan, Vyborg, Amsterdam, there are branches in London, Venice.
Queue at the Hermitage, 2016. Photo: blog.fontanka.ru
What about Peacock?
In 1777, Prince Grigory Potemkin decided to once again surprise Empress Catherine. His choice fell on the work of the English mechanic James Cox. Why exactly on him is unknown. Perhaps the Russian count saw amazing things in the advertising catalogs that the master published. However, it is not entirely clear whether Cox personally carried out the order for the Russian prince or whether Friedrich Yuri helped him. The gift had to be disassembled - otherwise it simply would not have been delivered to Russia. They took it apart, but they couldn’t put it back together - some of the parts turned out to be either broken or lost. The spectacular gift would have been gathering dust if in 1791 Potemkin had not instructed Ivan Kulibin to “revive the birds.” And the master top class did the impossible: the clock began to tick, and the intricate mechanism began to move. As soon as the clock starts ringing, the owl in the cage “comes to life”. As the bells ring, the cage begins to rotate. Then the peacock “wakes up”: its tail rises and begins to unfurl, the bird bows, draws in and throws back its head, and opens its beak. At the moment when the tail fully opens, the peacock turns 180 degrees so that the audience sees its ... butt. Then the feathers drop and the peacock takes its original position. Find out about the real reason Such impartial behavior of a peacock is impossible today. According to one version, Kulibin failed to ensure that the bird made a full rotation. Another legend claims that the master deliberately forced the bird to perform a similar “fouette,” thereby demonstrating his attitude towards the royal court, for which the “bird” was intended.
Homer's Tomb
In the Jupiter Hall you can find another unsolved mystery of the Hermitage - the “tomb of Homer”. It was taken either from the island of Andros or from the island of Chios during the First Archipelago Expedition of Count Orlov-Chesmensky. The first owner of the tomb was the “initiator of extraordinary affairs” Count Alexander Stroganov, who wrote: “In the first Turkish war In 1770, the Russian officer Domashnev, who commanded our landing on one of the islands of the Archipelago, brought this sarcophagus to Russia and gave it to me. When I saw this monument, I could not help but exclaim: “Isn’t this a monument to Homer?” The phrase began to pass from mouth to mouth, only, it seemed, without a questioning intonation. Soon, Stroganov's authority as a collector grew incredibly. Of course, because he possessed an item that adventurers from all over the world had been chasing for centuries. However, the “tomb of Homer” is another beautiful legend, like Atlantis or the gold of Troy. Having studied the bas-reliefs, scientists confidently stated that the ancient tomb was created in the 2nd century AD, which means that the person who owned the sarcophagus missed Homer by nine hundred years. But another mystery of the tomb remains unsolved: the completely different style of the back and front walls of the sarcophagus. How, where and when these walls connected is unclear.
Bloodthirsty goddess
In the Egyptian hall you can find one of the oldest Egyptian monuments in Russia - a statue of the goddess of war and retribution, the angry Mut-Sokhmet. According to the myth, the bloodthirsty goddess decided to destroy the human race. The gods decided to save the people: they poured red-tinted beer in front of the goddess, which Mut-Sokhmet mistook for human blood. She drank and calmed down. However, the legend of the Hermitage assures that the danger to people still remains. Allegedly, every year on the full moon a reddish puddle appears on the goddess’s lap. According to another version, the goddess’s feet become covered with a strange reddish wet coating whenever Russia faces another trouble, misfortune, or catastrophe. The last time a raid was allegedly discovered was in 1991. Is there any truth to the legend? And how can you explain the strange “bloody” raid? Answers to these questions have not yet been found.
The Mystery of the Golden Mask
The Hermitage collections contain only three antique gold posthumous masks. One of them is a mask from the tomb of Rhescuporis. In 1837, archaeologists discovered a mound in the vicinity of Kerch; inside they found a stone sarcophagus with a female skeleton, which supposedly belonged to none other than the queen: the whole body was strewn with gold plaques, there was a golden wreath on the head, the face was hidden by a golden mask. Around the sarcophagus was found large number valuable items, including a silver dish with the name of King Rheskuporidas, ruler of the Bosporan kingdom, embossed. Scientists assumed that his wife was buried in the sarcophagus, but later doubted it. It is still a hypothesis that golden mask hid the face of the Bosporan queen, has not been confirmed or refuted.
Bowing Peter
An aura of mystery surrounds the so-called “ wax person» Peter, on which domestic and European masters worked after the death of the emperor. Many visitors claimed that they saw with their own eyes how the wax Peter stood up, bowed, and then pointed to the door, apparently hinting that it was “time and honor for the guests to know.” In the 20th century, during restoration, hinges were discovered inside the figure, which made it possible to seat and position the figure of Peter in a chair. However, no mechanism was discovered that would allow the king to move independently. Some found the evidence unconvincing, others did not want to lose another beautiful legend. Be that as it may, even today there are many who claim that they were in the hall with a “familiar caretaker” at the very moment when the figure “came to life.”
"Icon of the Godless Time"
One of the most scandalous masterpieces, Malevich's Black Square from 1932, can also be found in the Hermitage. The author himself interpreted the idea as infinity, generalized into a single sign, calling the “Black Square” an icon of a new, godless time. Disputes about ideological content the canvases have been under construction for a long time, but from the moment the painting was exhibited in the Hermitage, attention was again and again drawn to its “destructive” energy: some visitors next to it lost consciousness, others, on the contrary, became frantically excited. Is the world's masterpiece truly endowed with mystical power, or this another attempt“add fuel to the fire”? These questions are easy to answer, you just have to visit the Hermitage.
Named palace on main square Petersburg for more than 250 years. The majestic and elegant building in the Baroque style was built in 1762 by the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The portal "Culture.RF" has prepared 10 facts about the imperial residence and the Hermitage Museum, which is located in the palace.
Five Winter Palaces. Winter on Palace Square- the most famous imperial palace, but not the only one. There were five of them in total. The first and second “winter houses” of Peter I stood near the Winter Canal - a canal that connects the Moika and Neva rivers. The third palace - Anna Ioannovna - near the Admiralty; the fourth was on Nevsky Prospekt. The fifth palace, known today to the whole world, according to Elizabeth Petrovna’s plan, was to become the embodiment of the power of the Russian monarchy.
Don't build higher. The height of the Winter Palace is 23.5 meters. In 1844, Nicholas I issued a decree: he prohibited the construction of civil buildings in St. Petersburg higher than 11 fathoms - 23.43 meters. And although the Winter Palace was not directly mentioned in the decree, it remained the most tall building Northern capital.
City within a city. The Winter Palace became a gigantic palace complex that can be called a city within a city. The building had a residential area and state rooms, two churches, a theater and a museum. There were also utility rooms here: a pharmacy with a laboratory and employee apartments, kitchens and storerooms, stables and an arena.
State rooms. Some of the ceremonial halls of the Winter Palace overlooked the Neva, some were located in the central part of the palace. St. George's Hall - also called the Great Throne Hall - was created under Catherine II in 1795 according to the design of Giacomo Quarenghi. The marble bas-relief “St. George Slaying the Dragon with a Spear,” located above the throne, was made by sculptor Francesco del Nero based on drawings by Vasily Stasov. All official meetings and ceremonies took place in the St. George's Hall.
Frescoes from the Papal Palace. Raphael's loggias appeared in the Winter Palace 30 years after its construction, when classicism was becoming fashionable in Europe and Russia. The two-story building, built in 1792 by Giacomo Quarenghi, houses a gallery with copies of frescoes from the Papal Palace in the Vatican. Construction was carried out by personal decree of Catherine II.
Architect's mistake. In 1826, Auguste Montferrand, by order of the emperor, built new apartments in the royal residence. It is believed that the architect made a mistake when designing the heating system. Because of her, in December 1837, a fire broke out in the palace, which could not be put out for two days. The building, of which only the skeleton remained, took almost two years to be restored; the work was led by architect Vasily Stasov. The updated Winter Palace was an exact copy of the old palace complex - both externally and internally.
Gift for the king. The malachite living room is the only room whose interior has been completely preserved to this day. The living room served as a link between the state rooms of the palace and the rooms of the empress. The luxurious hall is decorated with the famous Ural malachite - a valuable green mineral. More than two tons of malachite were donated royal family for the decoration of the palace, the Demidov miners.
"The Hermit's Dwelling". This is how the word Hermitage is literally translated. In past centuries, a “hermit’s dwelling” was a name for secluded, cozy rooms for a pleasant pastime with family and friends. In the 1760s, architects Yuri Felten and Jean-Baptiste-Michel Vallin-Delamot built the Small Hermitage next to the palace. The building began to be called that because Catherine II organized performances and entertainment evenings in it - “small hermitages”. Her first collection of paintings was kept here, which later became the basis museum collection.
Palace cats. Cats appeared in the palace in 1745, when Empress Elizabeth Petrovna issued a Decree on the deportation of cats to the court. The animals received the honorary status of “guardians of art galleries.” Nowadays, about 60 cats live in the Hermitage. In the basement they have a specially equipped room with bowls, sleeping mats, and trays. Cats have their own veterinarian. All animals are vaccinated, sterilized and undergo examinations in the best hospitals in St. Petersburg. The museum even has an official holiday - Hermitage Cat Day, celebrated at the end of April or beginning of May. On this day, everyone is allowed into the cat’s abode, and an exhibition of children’s drawings is held under the Jordan Stairs.
The most important museum in Russia - the Hermitage - is already more than 250 years old. This largest museum our country. We have collected the most interesting facts, which are probably unknown to many.
Once upon a time, even Pushkin could not get into the Hermitage
The Hermitage appeared as private collection Catherine the Great: the empress purchased a collection of 317 valuable paintings for 183 thousand thalers. The paintings were placed in secluded halls of the palace, by the way, hence the name: from French “Hermitage” means a place of solitude, a hermit’s shelter. This collection was gradually replenished with new copies, but not everyone could visit the halls. Thus, Alexander Pushkin was able to view the collection only after requests from Vasily Zhukovsky, whose influence at court was quite strong.
Nicholas I opened the Hermitage to visitors in 1852, and by 1880 the museum was visited annually by 50 thousand people. The emperor himself loved to walk around the museum in all alone: at this moment it was forbidden to contact him by household issues.
Cats work in the Hermitage
Cats first appeared in the Winter Palace under Elizabeth Petrovna: she issued a “Decree on the expulsion of cats to the court.” This happened after the palace began to be attacked by rats that damaged the walls. Well, Catherine II gave the animals an official status - “guards of art galleries.”
Today, about 70 cats live in the museum, and they are often called “freelance employees.” They have their own passport, and they can walk everywhere except exhibition halls. And cats are a real legend of the museum, they are sent gifts, films are made about them (as Hermitage workers joke, more often than about Rembrandt) and articles are written. And the American Mary Ann Ellin, who visited the museum with her granddaughter, even wrote a book for children dedicated to the Hermitage cats.
There are unknown masterpieces in the Hermitage
The Hermitage often presents to the public earlier unknown works artists. And sometimes they are so unknown that even the employees themselves do not know about their presence within the walls of the museum. So, in the 1960s, a picture Dutch artist It was discovered quite by accident by a Dutch art critic. The museum staff invited him to have tea in the back room, and under the cabinet he saw some kind of leaf. When the find was recovered, it turned out that it was the painting “Bacchus, Ceres, Venus and Cupid”, written by Hendrik Goltzius. And the canvas was acquired by Catherine II back in 1772. The painting was sent for restoration, after which it took its place of honor in the exhibition. They say that now every museum employee dreams of finding a masterpiece and carefully examines all corners of the Hermitage.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Hermitage had a collection of cars
Few people know, but Nicholas II collected cars. He purchased his first car in 1905, and within six years there were about 50 brands. For this purpose, a special garage was built between the Winter Palace and the Small Hermitage.
Mercedes, Delaunay-Belleville, Rolls-Royce, Brasier, Peugeot, Renault, as well as Russian Russo-Balt and Lessner cars were parked here. The garage had everything you needed: a car wash, a gas station, and even a whole steam heating system (to avoid corrosion). Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks also liked cars, and during the looting of the Hermitage in 1917, the entire collection of Nicholas II disappeared without a trace.
Ghosts have been seen in the Hermitage
Mystical stories about the Hermitage, its ghosts and animated exhibits - this is a whole layer of mythology of St. Petersburg that deserves a separate story. But the most famous of them is the legend of Peter I. They say that wax figure The emperor stands up, bows to the visitors and points to the door. By the way, the doll actually has hinges that allow it to be placed in a chair or stood up, apparently, this is where the legend’s legs grow.
But there are even scarier stories: for example, about the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet with a lion's head. Her sculpture stands in the hall Ancient Egypt. According to myths, the goddess of war and the scorching sun, Sekhmet, was very bloodthirsty. It is said that sometimes during a full moon a pool of blood appears on the knees of the sculpture, which later disappears.
It takes 11 years to see all the exhibits in the Hermitage
The Hermitage is not only one of the most popular museums in Russia, but also in the world. More than 5 million people visit it every year, and the number of exhibits has long exceeded three million. The collections are housed in five buildings, and you need to travel 24 kilometers to even get past all the exhibits. Well, if you stand near each work of art for at least a minute, it will take 11 years. And this is provided that you need to spend 8-10 hours in the museum every day.
The Hermitage was robbed by its own: museum “werewolves” stole works of art worth more than 130 million rubles
Sergey Andreev
Photo by Zamir Usmanov, Andrey Kulgun
The buzzword “werewolf” took on another meaning last week. The grand theft of 221 exhibits from the collections of the country's main museum is blamed not on criminals from the street, but on the museum employees themselves. Stunned by the incident, the director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, said that the principle of “the presumption of innocence of museum employees” no longer applies. If previously it was believed that a museum worker could under no circumstances cause harm to his own storage, now the opposite is stated. Almost all of the missing exhibits are monuments of jewelry and icon painting from the 15th to 19th centuries. In the hands of thieves were 107 icons, 10 reliquary crosses, 8 silver chalice bowls, easter eggs workshop of Carl Faberge, silverware, tabletop animal figurines made of precious materials, cigarette cases made of silver and gold, watches studded precious stones, photo frames, a powder compact that belonged to one of the Russian empresses, and her mirror in a silver frame.
The ill-fated storage facility has already been repeatedly inspected by high-ranking employees of the St. Petersburg Central Internal Affairs Directorate, including representatives of the ninth, so-called “antique” department, as well as specialists from Moscow. Neither one nor the other has yet been able to achieve any results. The head of the Hermitage museum security service, Alexander Khozhainov, said that the main goal of the search team is to try to at least accurately determine the date of the theft. Most of the missing exhibits were exhibited extremely rarely. For example, some of the missing items in last time exhibited in 2000. Moreover, among the stolen rarities there are also those that Hermitage employees saw and held in their hands 30 or more years ago. Neither Khozhainov nor Mikhail Piotrovsky exclude the possibility that the items could have been stolen more than once. The crime could have dragged on for decades.
But this is not all that is striking in this story. It turns out that the museum workers themselves learned that the most valuable exhibits disappeared to who knows where else... last fall. The custodian responsible for the missing exhibits died at work. Both the Hermitage press service and the head of the museum security service refused to name the deceased curator, citing the secrecy of the investigation. Find out what it is and also find out what's on at the moment the deceased is the main suspect in the theft; it was possible only with police officers who wished to remain incognito.
In total, 46-year-old Larisa Alekseevna Zavadskaya worked at the Hermitage for about 30 years. For the last 15 years she has been the eldest research fellow Department of the History of Russian Culture - custodian of the fund jewelry. She's the same long time collaborated with the FSB. In mid-October last year, Zavadskaya, the person who was the last to hold the missing exhibits in her hands and personally catalog them, died right at her workplace. At the end of the day, Larisa Alekseevna began to get ready to go home, called her husband and said that she was leaving in 15 minutes. Next, the woman sat down at the computer and after a few moments buried her face in the keyboard. According to the ambulance doctors, she died instantly. Official reason death - a blood clot in the heart.
By a strange coincidence, it was precisely in these October days that the issue of transferring exhibits from the Russian department of the Hermitage to other, younger curators was being decided. While the museum's management had no complaints about Larisa Zavadskaya, the age of her partner (76 years old) was embarrassing. Then it became clear that some items in the collection were missing. The scale of the loss became known only after the death of Larisa Zavadskaya, but even here the museum management was in no hurry to sound the alarm. “The fact that an exhibit is not on the shelf does not mean it has disappeared,” Mikhail Piotrovsky explained to reporters. - A storage unit may go to another fund, because we have more than three million exhibits, to restorers or to a darkroom. Only after the completion of the total inventory did we draw up a corresponding act and notify where it should go.” Only three people, including the late Zavadskaya, had access to the funds where the missing exhibits were stored.
“This is a stab in the back for the Hermitage and the entire museum community,” laments Mikhail Piotrovsky. “And evidence of the deep imperfection of the storage system, built on the presumption of innocence of museum workers.”
The maximum salary of a museum curator is 15 thousand rubles. Any of the employees who hardly fit even into the concept of “middle class” could provide themselves, and at the same time their grandchildren, with a comfortable old age by pocketing any, even the smallest thing. It won’t be difficult to take it out of the Hermitage. Not only are museum employees not searched, but they are not even forced to go through a metal detector.
The grand theft came as a shock to everyone; the museum’s management began to think about new security measures, including applying isotope markers to the exhibits. Law enforcement officials are struggling with the question of where the rarities could have gone. There are various versions - from export abroad (the list and photos of stolen valuables were transferred to Interpol) to the one according to which all the things were hidden by the thief in the Hermitage itself and will be taken out after the noise subsides.
The problem of theft from museum funds is complex and multifaceted. Only high-profile cases become public: in 2001, in the same Hermitage, thieves who had not yet been found in the middle of the day cut out of the frame and carried away the painting by Jean Leon Gerome “Pool in a Harem”. You can steal from the museum's storerooms with almost impunity. In this regard, the story of the inspection of the Hermitage by the Accounts Chamber in March 2000 is curious. The auditors demanded that museum workers present 50 exhibits, according to documents stored in the funds. The list was compiled on a random basis. The commissions were able to demonstrate only 3 exhibits; another 19 were found after the inspection was completed. No one could tell where the rest went. The same audit revealed that in 2000, 220 thousand exhibits were not assigned to financially responsible persons at all. And 200 storage units were listed as fired or deceased employees.
P.S. Last week, two entire exhibits from the stolen collection were found. The St. Petersburg Central Internal Affairs Directorate reported dryly about the discovery of the icon “The Cathedral of All Saints”: the image was found in a garbage can near house 21 on Ryleeva Street. An anonymous person allegedly informed about this via “02”. The unofficial version is this: as soon as the list of the missing was announced, a collector came to the “antique” department of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate (by a strange coincidence, it is next to house 21 on Ryleeva Street) with the “Cathedral of All Saints” in his hands. The St. Petersburg resident stated that he purchased the icon from a private person back in 2001. The second exhibit - a church chalice - was found last Friday in Moscow from a famous antique dealer, who voluntarily handed it over to the authorities.
Ogonyok dossier
The State Hermitage today has more than 3 million exhibits, half of which fall under the “especially valuable” category. Of these, 300 thousand are the “Russian collection”, 600 thousand are a collection of Western European art, 1500 are a jewelry gallery, over a million are the numismatics department, etc. Taking into account the abandonment of the principle of the presumption of innocence of museum employees, almost all persons related to “ Russian department of the Hermitage. By the way, the department of the history of Russian culture is the youngest department of the museum, it was founded in April 1941. At the moment, it has 34 employees, of which two are doctors of science and 13 are candidates. The exhibition developed by the department occupies 50 halls.
Mikhail Piotrovsky is the first major failure of the 61-year-old Hermitage director in his 14 years at the helm of the museum. Piotrovsky - doctor historical sciences, a major orientalist, one of Putin’s most favored cultural figures. Piotrovsky is the chairman of the Presidential Cultural Council, for some time he even headed the board of directors of ORT, and president of the World Club of St. Petersburgers.