The Hermitage Who-Done-It

There have been many conflicting accounts in the English-language press about the theft of 221 objects from the Department of Russian Culture of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. It seems worth publishing the official statement released by the Hermitage, complete with its mistranslations (“exhibits” for “objects”; the curator died at “his work,” when it should have been “her work”). CultureGrrl has talked to her contacts, and coming next will be more details on the story, including some clarification on the mystery surrounding the deceased curator.
On 31 July 2006, the Press Service of the State Hermitage issued the following statement:
The disappearance of 221 exhibits from the State Hermitage collection was uncovered during a routine internal audit. The missing items are pieces of Russian jewelry, mainly enamel work, with an estimated value of 130 million rubles.
Internal checks are conducted at the Hermitage on a permanent basis in accordance with a schedule which is confirmed by the Ministry of Culture. The results of these checks are presented to the Federal Agency on Culture and Cinematography for approval.
The curator responsible for most of the missing items died suddenly at his work post at the start of the inspection. The audit was continued by other curators who took over the collection and who discovered the loss of the exhibits. Superior officers were informed of the loss and an investigation was begun.
There are many peculiar aspects to this affair but, unfortunately, there can be no doubt that museum employees were involved. This indicates there are serious moral problems, dereliction of duty and lack of responsibility, as well as a profound shortcoming in a system of guardianship based on the presumption of museum staff’s innocence. Unfortunately, there is also a “seamy side” in our own midst.
The discovery of this theft or plundering has shown that continual internal audits remain a reliable, though not necessarily speedy method of uncovering loss of exhibits. Unfortunately, such routine checks were held up for several years at the Hermitage while the museum had to defend itself against unjustified and tendentious accusations of theft and misuse of money in areas where nothing of the sort had occurred.
The recent events once again confirm the correctness of the Hermitage’s policy of concentrating all its efforts and resources on creating modern storage facilities with thorough monitoring of both visitors and curators. Regrettably, thus far only the first building of the Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya has been commissioned.
This extraordinary event at the Hermitage again highlights the fact that there are complex strategic and tactical problems facing museum managers as a result of the discrepancies between traditional museum practices and today’s sharply criminalized social climate, wherein people lose their moral compass. Alas, the disappearance of museum exhibits is nothing new in our public life. We must seriously reorganize everything in our museums – from the system of accounting to our personal relations. This is an acute and urgent task, but the implementation of solutions is impeded by the ongoing and permanent battle of museums for elementary survival in the presence of constantly arising new threats which absorb a very large part of the time and efforts of all members of the museum community.