Mikhail Piotrovsky: War belongs to the life of animals, culture to the life of people. An interview with the Mir TV channel

- What would have happened if the Germans had broken through, and the exhibits were still in the museum?

Mikhail Piotrovsky: If, despite everything, they did manage to take the city and the Hermitage, then part of the works would have been selected for Germany, those that were considered in Germany to accord with the German spirit and belonged, as they saw it, to Germany, and the majority of those would have then perished in the fighting while being moved. Then, the whole lot would have perished because we would have finished off the Reich anyway. The only correct move was to get them away, to give time and the opportunity to deal with Nazi Germany.

You have to understand that they came to plunder, and during plundering half of the things perish, and then the looter perishes himself, often with his booty. As we know, part of what the Germans plundered went on to perish during the war, if it was not hidden.

War destroys culture. War belongs to the life of animals, culture to the life of people. Animals do not have culture. Peoples exist while their culture and heritage is preserved, their own and our shared world heritage. The task is not only to save it from the enemy, but to save it altogether. That is why things are evacuated in wartime, bomb shelters are constructed, along with whole plans for mobilization, evacuation, protection and rescue. That is why international standards are being drawn up, and already exist, for armed intervention for the protection of cultural monuments.

- Your father was also involved in the evacuation. What were his recollections of that time?

Mikhail Piotrovsky: By the time he arrived, the evacuation was almost over. It was done very quickly. Those recollections have already turned to some degree into hagiographies because they were astonishing events. They should live on as astonishing events, and not simply an account of separate facts. It turned out that people were prepared, the museum was prepared. It turned out that in the museum members of the intelligentsia – the ones still not eradicated, one might say, as there were a large number of people with the “wrong” surnames (the administration was constantly being nagged on that score) – proved that they could organize themselves and labour day and night on such tasks as packing and transportation. It turned out that the Leningrad intelligentsia could organize themselves because there was not enough manpower – and the call went out to kindred spirits, those who were intellectually like-minded: artists, scholars, writers, researchers. Everyone vividly remembers the artists. They came here to pack everything up. Two trainloads got away; the third came back, The siege line had been closed. As if by some mystic force, during the First World War, as well, two trainloads went off to Moscow, while a third remained, and the October Revolution happened.

The museum should always be prepared for emergency situations, one of which is war. The whole country showed that in such a situation there are inner props that come into play in an environment that should not be prepared in any respect. Those who remained to guard the museum came to work every day, starving, in the cold, because they had to check on the things, on their state of preservation. All that in conditions of extreme tension, and people were prepared to do that – there’s the marvel. Sometimes you wonder whether today’s young people, today’s authorities are prepared for extreme situations. Back then, the country showed that they were.

The Hermitage is a good example. The whole story of the Hermitage’s great exploit is a vivid example that brings out the qualities that were in people. For a Hermitage person there is nothing more important than the Hermitage; everything else comes second. Everyone remembers that they convinced themselves once again that the Hermitage is not just a home, it is your main family.

-The coronavirus has reduced the flow of tourists. Has the Hermitage calculated its losses?

Mikhail Piotrovsky: We don’t calculate losses. We’re not a commercial enterprise. We are an establishment that is supported by the state and in part by our own income. We no longer have that income. The amendment to the Constitution proclaims that the state supports and protects culture. Protection of culture lies in the state making good the lost income that is not there, that may not be there. This year the state has compensated for that. I think this will continue. As visitors come back, we will in part compensate that from our own income, but a museum should not reckon on getting an income from visitors.

A museum can be free of charge, if someone supports it completely. Income and visitor numbers are an important indicator, but it is not an important indicator of a museum’s success. We calculated everything and sent all the figures off to the government. In the past we made half our budget ourselves. Now that half needs to be made good somehow, otherwise there won’t be money to keep people, maintain the museum and climate, and transport exhibitions.

– Still, the number of tourists has dropped. There have been no tourists, for example, from China who used to actively visit the museum all summer.

Mikhail Piotrovsky: Now there are roughly half as many visitors as there used to be at this time. What we used to have at that time, that twice as many, was at the limit of what the museum can take. Right now, the museum is receiving 4,000 people a day. It can comfortably take 7,000–8,000. Anything more makes things tense for both the museum and the people.

– What positive experience has the museum taken away from this situation? What have you thought up and implemented?

Mikhail Piotrovsky: We’re using the virus now to establish some order. The Hermitage, like the entire world around, was chaotic. Now the world has forced us to establish some sort of order. Now there are no crowds in the Hermitage jostling each other, not letting others get past and view the exhibits. Now the Hermitage does not have the terrible queues that people stood in for hours without knowing if they would get into the museum. Now everything is organized, thanks to the virus. There are many shortcomings to that, but we are transforming the system. At one point, tickets were only available on the Internet; now people can get them on the Internet and from the ticket offices. The opportunity to make a visit move comfortable is emerging, but we have already eliminated a number of inconveniences that did exist and were very hard to cope with.

Now we have developed a good system of interacting with the information that appears online and offline. Now our electronic resources, highly educational ones, prepare people to understand the Hermitage and not simply to turn up and look. I think that together we have drawn many correct lessons. We are establishing a Petersburg-style order. I think that we will be holding exhibitions, too, when the borders reopen, but again for the moment we have returned to some extend to the old days, when all over there were thousands of hindrances to crossing the borders. Still, exhibitions crossed them 40 years ago, and they’ll do so now too.