Russian Museums are in Trouble

Thursday August 10, 2006

Quote from a recent news article about Hermitage Museum thefts:

Art experts say Russian museums, galleries and archives have been suffering from lax security, poor record-keeping and lack of funding for years.

You don't have to be a museum expert to know this. You don't even have to know about the arrests made over 221 items stolen from the Hermitage. Any person visiting the most iconic museums in Russia (the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Armory Museum in Moscow) can see how both Soviet disrespect for art and modern neglect have made museums places where precious art and artifacts are exposed to inappropriate temperatures, nonexistant security, and inconsistent, incompetant preservation measures.

The last time I was at the Armory Museum, located at the Kremlin, royal carriages were on display with light-up signs warning visitors not to touch when anyone came within a certain proximity of the gilt-and-velvet devices of transportation. The only other thing preventing them coming in contact with visitors was a knee-high rope. The art museum in Tomsk had oil paintings hung in un-airconditioned rooms with windows flung wide open (both no-no's --heat and humidity, as well as pollution from the street, wreak havoc on centuries-old paintings). The Regional Museum in Krasnoyarsk suffers from this same problem. In one St. Petersburg palace, visitors are permitted to trample the precious-wood parquet floors, and wide swathes of wear are apparent where thousands of visitors have walked to gape at silk wallpapered rooms, trompe l'oiel ceilings, lapis-inlay chess sets, and commanding portraits of Tsars and Tsarinas.

Unfortunately, preservation efforts have been put into one of Russia's least interesting artifacts: Lenin's Body in Moscow. Millions have been spent to mummify this Soviet terror while Russia's artistic history deteriorates or is sold on foreign markets. One might wonder if these items are better off in personal collections, where they might be better appreciated . . . albeit by individuals rather than the public.