The 250th anniversary of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, which will take place in 2014, will cost federal budget 12 mld Rubles (about $ 400 mln), reports Baltinfo, referring to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak.
All the anniversary events will be held in December 2014. The Hermitage is preparing a big exhibition program, says the museum Director Mikhail Piotrovsky. The General Staff building is to be reconstructed and the whole museum is to be repaired by that time.
If necessary the additional means might be allotted by the city authorities, says the new St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko.
On September 21 a new draft of the Hermitage charter was approved at the meeting of the organizational committee on preparation to 250th anniversary. According to the document, the Russian government will become a new museum constituent instead of the Minister of Culture. This will let the Hermitage to raise its status and solve its problems quicker in the highest level.
The Hermitage is the largest museum in Russian and one of the largest museums in the world. It was founded in 1764 and at first it was a private collection of the Catherine the Great.
Author: Irina Fomina