On 26 October 2020, a session of the sub-group on questions of the development of museum and exhibition activities within the State Council of the Russian Federation’s working group on Culture. The session took place in an online format with Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage and President of the Union of Museums of Russia, participating.
At the start of the session, opening addresses were made to all those attending by Anton Alikhanov, Governor of Kaliningrad Region, who chaired the meeting, and Alla Manilova, Secretary of State and Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, while Mikhail Piotrovsky spoke about the museum as a perpetual university. Later experts on museum affairs discussed the positioning of museums in the regulatory and legal field and in the realm of culture and the humanities.
As a result of the meeting, the members of the working group formulated a number of proposals for changes to regulatory and legislative acts of the Russian Federation that mention the status of museums, the criteria for defining museums and the regulation of the activities of museums. Decisions were adopted on how to further the formation of a united cultural space in the Russian Federation and the filling of it with meaningful value, the elevation of the status of the professional community, and the role of museums in the integration of the cultural and educational spheres.
Those proposals were passed over for consideration to the Ministry of Culture, the State Council’s working group on Culture, the cultural management bodies and the local administrations of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation.
The minutes of the session and a complete list of the resolutions adopted (in Russian) can be found on the site of the Union of Museums of Russia.
