A new issue of the Official Newspaper of the State Hermitage has come out

In December 2020, a new issue of the Official Newspaper of the State Hermitage came out. This time the newspaper has been published in electronic form, which means anyone who wishes can read it. Issue 02 (20) of 25 December 2020 has been placed on the Internet resources of the State Hermitage and its Official Hotel.

The main materials in the December issue are devoted to the life of the museum during the pandemic. Its General Director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, tells about how a new system of interaction between the museum and its visitors is being born, while Alexei Subarnov, the Deputy Head of the Security Service, writes about the work of the Hermitage during quarantine and the current rules for visitors.

Additionally, readers can find out much of interest about the exhibitions that are running in the Hermitage this winter: “After Raphael. 1520–2020”, “The Iron Age. Europe without Borders”, “Fabergé, Jeweller to the Imperial Court”, “The Hermitage in the General Staff Building. Twenty Years of Exhibitions”, “Two Paintings by Bronzino. Conservation Completed” and more.

A Word from the Director (Official Newspaper of the State Hermitage, issue 02–2020)

We are living in a completely new world. It is born of the pandemic, a danger that is not going anywhere anytime soon. And we are building a new system of living in this world.

We are beginning to understand a well-known truth: one person’s freedom ends where it clashes with the freedom of another. Our rights and pleasures must be coordinated with the rights and pleasures of others.

Take the Hermitage a year ago – a wonderful museum, but chaotic. Crowds walk around it. There are queues to get in, but no guarantee that you’ll do so, that you’ll manage to buy a ticket before it closes. And such chaos existed everywhere. Now the situation demands the imposition of order.

It's not just a museum approach, but also a philosophical one. The Hermitage is becoming a model of a certain kind of order, as is very evident. On Palace Square everyone walks around without masks, trying to live without regard for existing restrictions, outside of those restrictions. On the two sides of the square, though, are the General Staff building and the Winter Palace. To get there you have to sign up in advance, which means there are no queues. You have to wear masks, and that’s called a dress code. We are living like in the days of Nicholas I, when in theory anyone could come to the Hermitage, but in practice you had to get permission and dress decently. This is the Saint Petersburg style, the way Saint Petersburg has always differed from Moscow – everything is lined up, neat and orderly. That is sometimes annoying, but it can be useful.

On the one hand, right now the restrictions are ensuring the normal functioning of society. On the other, thanks to them we have the opportunity to see how we can utilize the latest technologies. Modern technical innovations make many things possible. Museums (and this is going on around the world) are learning how to use them. A new pattern of interaction with the audience is being developed, a more serious, deeper one, that includes preparation for a visit to the museum and communication afterwards. We are creating a system that combines life online and offline.

Mikhail Piotrovsky,
General Director of the State Hermitage