Mikhail Piatrovski, head of the Russian “Hermitage”, has visited Armenia on the basis of the invitation of the “Caucasus Institution for Democracy”. Mr. Piatrovski says that it is his pleasure to return to his Homeland and says that he clearly remembers his street and yard.
“Yerevan has changed much but its appearance is still alive. My son, who is in Armenia, first says that he wants to stay here because he has a lot of relatives here”. Piatrovski’s father, geologist Boris Piatrovski, was a member of the geologists’ group examining the Red Hill of Yerevan, where he met his future wife, geologist Hripsime Janpoladyan. Piatrovski’s father said that the best memory he had brought from Armenia was his wife. His visit is very good for our museums. “We have a lot to do with Armenian museums”, says Piatrovski. The fields of cooperation will be clear after he meets with some heads of museums and talks to them about the current problems. He also visited the Russian-Armenian Slavonic University and had a meeting with students, where he went back into time and told about the history of the Hermitage. Piatrovski has been the head of the Hermitage since 1992, when all Russian museums were in poor conditions. Mr. Piatrovski knows very well what museums should do in order to overcome financial crises.
Today the Hermitage is not only a museum, but also has its own orchestra, music hall, film studio and radio station. Piatrovski is sure that people around the world are getting more interested in visiting museums. “Museums are the most democratic art centers and their role is getting more important day by day because people learn about the history and their lives from museums. Nowadays, you can visit museums and see real things and pictures. This adds more knowledge to the brain. Museum pictures and things say a lot about history and very often they even talk to each other”, says Piatrovski. For this purpose they usually show different cultures, which do have something in common.
Mr. Piatrovski also says that the entrance of museums should be free of charge but that can’t be done yet at the Hermitage. Children, students and old people can visit the Hermitage for free and the fee for Russian citizens is cheaper than for foreigners, “We can’t pay ten dollars for entering museums, that is why we are not able to visit museums”, says Mr. Piatrovski.
Religion and culture
Mr. Piatrovski lives in several cultural systems at one time. He has understood that “When you transform from one culture to another you see that something that is moral in your culture may be immoral in another one”. In response to our question on how religion and culture can be harmonious, he said “Religious and live art are different, but of course everything depends on people. History gives us a lot of examples of harmony but very often people don’t take lessons from history. There have been many cases when Christians invited Muslim artists to their countries to see their arts. There were no problems with communication back then. It is possible to do that now too. Cultural differences shouldn’t serve as reasons for conflicts. Both these cultures should accept each other. We often show Muslim pieces of art in the Hermitage and the purpose is to prove that these two cultures don’t contradict each other”. Piatrovski says that his main goal is to create a dialogue between different cultures. The Eastern department of the Hermitage was founded thanks to the efforts of Iosif Orbelli, who was Armenian by nationality. Mr. Piatrovski doesn’t give privileges to any religion and often Muslims consider him worse than a person that doesn’t believe in anyone, but Mr. Piatrovski knows the Koran and Eastern history very well. The Hermitage will open its “Urartu” hall very soon and will publish brochures named “Christian East”. “When you study the culture of the whole world, you realize that you are just a small “insect” in this world, even if you are a perfect”, says Mr. Piatrovski.