The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT

specIal DeVelopment proGrammes specIal DeVelopment proGrammes
day of maecenaS aT The hermiTage
On 13 April, the Hermitage Theatre saw the fifth celebration
of the Day of Maecenas and Benefactor, which makes
it a well-established St. Petersburg tradition. Since last year,
it has had the support of the St. Petersburg Government
Committee for Culture. The birth date of Gaius Cilnius
Maecenas, the famous Roman aristocrat and friend of poets,
artists, and musicians, was calculated on the basis of an
ode by Horace. The meeting place is the Hermitage, which
keeps the famous Tiepolo painting, Maecenas Presenting the
Liberal Arts to Emperor Augustus, which has become a symbol
of the celebration.
The visitors were introduced to very different charitable
projects. While the economic crisis continues, many companies
have cut their charity spending. This makes it even
more important to have stable, continuous programmes
providing help to museums and other cultural, educational,
and healthcare institutions. Such programmes, funded
by companies like Gazprom Transgaz St. Petersburg,
Khleb ny Dom, Philips in Russia, the North-West Branch of
the Russian Federation Sberbank, were presented by their
leaders. The same category includes the “Theatrical Emergency”
project, launched by the Committee for Culture
and supported by the Unilever Concern, which has already
taken off in other Russian and CIS cities.
The changing environment calls for new, sought-after
forms of social activity. Thus, the programme “Keep the
Best at the Universities!” involves major IT companies
providing assistance to the best academic staff at Russian
universities, helping them to continue with their research
and teaching within the universities themselves. The bene-
factor companies, which are instrumental for meeting the
challenge of modernizing the economy, were introduced
by Vladimir Vasiliev, Head of the Council of Rectors of
St. Petersburg Universities.
St. Petersburg was the birthplace of the idea, later adopted
by other Russian regions as well, to rebuild the art gallery
in the city of Tskhinvali. This project was presented by Julietta
Tskhovrebova, a visitor from South Ossetia where she
is Director of the Arveron Gallery. St. Petersburg artists donated
their works to the revived collection.
As usual, a number of vulnerable children were invited to
take part in the celebration. Some of them came from the
SOS Children’s Village (town of Pushkin). The children’s
clothing designer Lali Managadze presented her works
with the help of young disabled models as part of the “Special
Fashion” project.
This year’s ceremony was dedicated to the 65th anniversary
of the victory in the Second World War. In the war
years, self-sacrifice was a mass phenomenon. The guests
learnt about the donors in the besieged Leningrad and
saw a unique colour film about the June 1945 Victory Parade
in the Red Square in Moscow. The only surviving participant
of this parade who lives in St. Petersburg, the retired
colonel Mikhail Pavlov, was an honorary guest of the
celebration.
To mark the Day of Maecenas, an exhibition of rare books
(15th – 20th centuries) on the history of the Italian Renaissance
donated to the museum from M. Gukovsky’s Library
was opened in the Foyer of the Hermitage Theatre. A. Odinokov,
a collector from Veliky Novgorod, donated to the
Hermitage graphic works of the 16th – 20th centuries, as
well as books and albums of the early 19th – 21st centuries;
A. Zhukov, a St. Petersburger, donated a presentation edition
of the book on the Feodorovsky Gosudarev (St. Theodore
Icon of the Virgin) Cathedral in Tsarskoye Selo, with
a facsimile reproduction of the inscription “Happy Christ’s
Holiday Nikolai Alexandra 25th December 1916”.
“if we are TogeTher, we are all STrong!”
a chariTy evenT aT The hermiTage
On 18 April 2010, the Hermitage held the traditional
charity event for the Anima Development Centre. Every
year, from 2004 onwards, the museum has thrown open its
doors for 300 children, teenagers and young people with
developmental problems, as well as their parents. Regular
classes at the Hermitage School Centre and monthly excursions
have been organized for them.
This year, the parents and children taking part in the charity
event were joined by children from the No 8 Vyborgsky
and No 27 Kirovsky Children’s Homes and the Boarding
School No 18 of the Nevsky District in St. Petersburg, and
the Social Shelter from the city of Tver.
The participants were offered a choice between the tours
“Western European Silver of the 16th – 20th Centuries”,
“The Impressionists”, “State Rooms of the Hermitage”.
The concert of creative companies from the St. Petersburg
Arts Lyceum was held at the Hermitage Theatre.
The hermiTage gaTherS iTS friendS.
a feSTival for diSaBled children
On 20 May 2010, the State Hermitage and the Umka Charitable
Social Organization which provides help to disabled
children staged a charity event called “The Hermitage
Gathers Its Friends” for children of different ages as well
as young people with health problems and disabilities.
The programme was drawn up jointly with the museum’s
School Centre. This event is always attended by children
and adults from such institutions as the Hospice, the
Ozerki Special School, the Solnechnoye Recuperation Resort,
and the Krasnye Zori Boarding School. This time, the
members of the Education Department have organized
tours for them to introduce them to the new exhibitions
on the art of the Ancient World and the Renaissance.
General excursions were organized for groups from the
League of Disabled People and the Child Psychiatry
Healthcare Centre, who were participating in the event for
the first time. It is important to note the interest and attention
with which the children listened to and absorbed
the excursions, their responsive and grateful attitude to the
tour guides. The second part of the event was a concert in
the Hermitage Theatre. Ballet dancers of the Mariinsky
Theatre and graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy appeared
in a remarkable performance combining classical
and modern dances.
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