The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT

specIal DeVelopment proGrammes specIal DeVelopment proGrammes
day of The march caT aT The hermiTage
On 27 March, the Hermitage held the traditional Day
of the March Cat, a special project developed by the museum
as a tribute to the cats that live there. The visitors could
meet the feline heroes of the day in the Great Courtyard of
the Winter Palace.
The artists Dmitry Shagin and Sergei Bugayev-Africa staged
a campaign “The Cat on the Ground, on Water and in Air”,
inviting volunteers to draw a fantastic animal – a flying cat,
a prancing cat or an aquatic cat. Visitors could play “cat
and mouse” in the museum rooms: their task was to help
a Hermitage cat to find its main prey, mice, in the works of
art from the Hermitage collection.
In the Hermitage attic, the exhibition “What can be Better
than a Tomcat? Only… a She-Cat” included works by artists
inspired by these graceful animals, including professional
paintings, photographs by the students of the Creative
Photography Studio run by the Hermitage Youth Centre,
and works by the school pupils who took part in the competition
“Cats in Myth and Legend”.
On 2 August 2010, projects within the World Heritage &
Youth Programme (WHY 2010) were presented at the
Hermitage.
The participants of the Hermitage Volunteer Service Programme,
who included students from a dozen Russian cities,
presented their projects focusing on the role of preserving
the cultural heritage for the young people.
The programme’s implementation became possible due
to the cooperation of the State Hermitage with the Rosatom
State Corporation. It was the second consecutive year that
Ahead of the Day of the March Cat, the State Hermitage
organized an art competition for the young pupils of arts
schools and studios from St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region.
In 2010, the children were invited to portray a cat as
a mythological and legendary animal. The winners were
announced on the Day of the March Cat at the Hermitage.
The world heriTage and youTh culTural and educaTional programme
“preServing our culTural heriTage TogeTher”:
a compeTiTion for young reSTorerS aT The STaTe hermiTage
On 28 September 2010, the State Hermitage and Coca-Cola
Export Corporation announced the launch of a new collaboration
programme – a competition for young restorers
at the State Hermitage entitled “Preserving Our Cultural
Heritage Together”. The grant competition for professional
placements at museums and restoration centres
abroad is an educational programme, a way of obtaining
additional professional experience abroad and sharing
it with colleagues in the Russian regions. Each of the competition
winners will be required to hold a master class
in one of the cities of the North-West and to supervise restoration
projects in the field of his/her master class.
The panel judging the competition includes Mikhail
Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage (Chairman),
his deputies Svetlana Adaksina, Georgy Vilinbakhov, and
the best students from Rosatom’s closed administrativeterritorial
formations, having passed through special competitive
selection, visited the Hermitage and participated
in the programmes of the museum’s Volunteer Service.
For two weeks, young people were getting familiar
with the museum, working in its various departments, taking
part in archaeological excavations, meeting specialists
in the field of the preservation of cultural heritage, and participating
in discussions along with students of art and architectural
higher educational institutions of St. Petersburg.
Vladimir Matveyev; Tatiana Baranova, Head of the museum’s
Department of Scientific Restoration and Conservation;
Lubo Gruich, Director General for Russia’s Coca-Cola
Export Corporation; Anna Kozlovskaya, Public Relations
Director at Coca-Cola; Konstantin Chukchukov, Regional
General Manager for Russia’s North-West Region at Coca-
Cola HBC Eurasia.
The winners of the competition were announced on 8 December
2010, during the Hermitage Days. They were the
restorers T. Sabianina (Laboratory for Scientific Restoration
of Graphic Works), T. Shlykova and O. Shuvalova
(Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Applied Art Objects,
Ceramics Sector), and I. Malkiel (Laboratory for Scientific
Restoration of Precious Metals). The second stage
of application selection is planned for February 2011.
dialogue of culTureS-2010:
fifTh inTernaTional forum for young
JournaliSTS from euraSia
Between 15 and 17 November 2010, the Fifth International
Forum for Young Journalists from Eurasia was held
at the State Hermitage. Over 150 participants from Azerbaijan,
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania,
Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, as well as students of St. Petersburg
and Moscow Universities, gathered in the Hermitage
Theatre to discuss the current issues of journalism
and the future of mass media.
The forum, organized by the State Hermitage and the Eurasia
Media Centre, was opened by the museum’s Director
Mikhail Piotrovsky and the Secretary General of the International
Confederation of Journalist Unions Ashot
Dzhazoyan.
17 November was a day of TV shooting. Representatives
of television channels had an opportunity to see the Restoration,
Conservation and Storage Centre in Staraya Derevnya,
as well as the permanent and temporary exhibitions
of the museum, and shoot films covering the topics they
selected.
At the closing of the Forum, commemorative tokens “For
Real Contribution to the Dialogue of Cultures” were pre-
Seventh International Festival “Musical Hermitage”. Andrei Kondakov at the grand piano
sented to the Advisor to the Director General of UNESCO
Henrikas Juskevicus and the President of the Civilization
Television Company Lev Nikolayev.
SevenTh inTernaTional feSTival
“muSical hermiTage”
On 20–28 February 2010, the Seventh International Festival
“Musical Hermitage”, organized by the State Hermitage
and the Hermitage Academy of Music with support from
the St. Petersburg Government Committee for Culture,
was held at the Hermitage Theatre, the Academic Capella,
and the Small Hall of the Philharmonic Society.
The concerts, different in genre, featured musicians from
eight countries. The Festival was opened by the Finnish orchestra
“Tapiola Sinfonietta” directed by the German conductor
Oleg Snetkov. The “Jazz Ring” saw performances by
the Moscow Art Trio (M. Alperin, S. Starostin, A. Shilkoper)
and the St. Petersburg Modern Trio (A. Kondakov,
V. Volkov, V. Gaivoronsky). The well-known French
violinist Pierre Amoyal played to the accompaniment
of the Camerata de Lausanne Orchestra. award winners
of the famous Canal Festival, the Cordevento Trio from
Amsterdam (Izhar Elias, Alessandro Pianu, Erik Bosgraaf),
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