Mikhail Piotrovsky on the Price of the Police Withdrawal from the Hermitage

An open letter issued by Mikhail Piotrovsky, Head of the Union of Museums of Russia and Director of the State Hermitage Museum, on the attack of the exhibition of the sculptor Vadim Siddur in the Moscow Manege carried out by the so-called Orthodox activists drew worldwide attention by the following phrase:

“We suggest the museums of Russia to hold urgent training sessions on protection of exhibitions on their own in view of the fact that the police stops physical protection of museums since November 2015”. Gorod 812 asked Mikhail Piotrovsky to comment on the situation.

– Will the police withdrawal affect the Hermitage?
– We have an agreement with the Independent Security Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior on the physical protection of the museum with the police guarding the perimeter and several points. We have just restored the Reserve House, where we’ve created a wonderful space for storing weapons. Yet, we have received a letter on the contract termination and on the police withdrawal since 1 November 2015.

– The Hermitage is a particularly valuable object of cultural heritage protected by the President of the Russian Federation, entered into the Register of the most valuable objects and established by the Russian government, not by the Ministry of Culture. Does this special status help at all?
– Everybody refer to the Presidential Decree on the reduction of the number of employees of the Ministry of Interior # 356 dated 13 July 2015. But it says nothing about the museums to be left without police protection.
There is an order of the Russian government # 1629-р dated 2 November 2009, which contains a list of objects subject to mandatory police protection. It includes museums, preserves, archives, libraries, etc.

– Then how do the police explain the termination of the contact for the protection of the Hermitage?
– They use such wordings as “in order to execute the Presidential Decree”, “in accordance with the orders of their senior executives”, “in coordination with local authorities”. They promise to provide protection by technical means and to send squads in case the signal alarms go off. They offer us the services rendered by Security FSUE of the Ministry of Interior and private security companies as well.

– Have you tried to engage private security companies?
– We have, but we weren’t satisfied with the quality of their work.

– You could have searched for some other companies.
– There are two fundamental points in this regard. The first one is that the employees of private security companies, just as the museum security service, do not have the rights granted to the police. They cannot handcuff vandals. The police are needed to fight the vandals. Thefts can be addressed by the museum security service.
The second and the most important point is that there is a hideous Federal Law # 44 on Tenders. What happens? We have to publish confidential information about the Hermitage everywhere. Due to the tremendous efforts during the tender for the creation of a new electronic alarm we managed not to publish data on the existing alarm system.
Experience of all the tenders shows that a lot of crooks participate in them; there is a separate business of quasi-participants selling their positions afterwards. Imagine this public getting access to the documents on the museum security.

– What is the price of police withdrawal from the Hermitage?
– Let’s see. We have prepared a reduced scheme for independent security. It will cost us 30 million rubles a year. If the police will leave, then the alternative measures are estimated at 100 million rubles a year. That’s what I said in a letter to Anton Siluanov, the Minister of Finance.

– In other words, is there an active official correspondence going on?
– Vladimir Medinsky, the Minister of Culture, supported the position of the Union of Museums of Russia and wrote a letter to the President setting out the situation with the security.

– What if nothing changes by November?
– The Hermitage won’t be lost, we’ll think of something. The Hermitage acts as a locomotive highlighting the seriousness of the situation with the museums in the country. There are museum preserves with vast territory, such as the Kulikovo Field. How will they be protected? In fact, the Union of Museums gives a signal not to the state but to the whole society which calmly looks at the way the government refuses to fulfil its commitments to the culture.

– Will the Hermitage keep the funding directed to the independent security service?
– Theoretically, it will, but in terms of the museum budget reduction by 10%, and there is no certainty about is.

Vadim SHUVALOV

P.S. It became known that Mikhail Piotrovsky and Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the Minister of Interior, agreed on the following: the Hermitage will present the Ministry of Interior with its plan to keep the independent security service at the museum.