DATELINE: August 13, 2008, Chicago
You are in for are treat when it comes to art and other museums if you visit Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg provide excellent opportunities to see works by Russian artists such as Andre Rublev, Anders Zorn, Ilya Repin, and Kazimir Malevich. Of course, there is the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, which is clearly one of the top...
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three museums in the world. Its collection may not be better than the Prado's, the Louvre's or the Uffizi's, but you won't find a more interesting building housing a collection. Its collection of works by Rembrandt, Matisse, Cezanne, Cranach, and Bruegel the Elder is unbelievable.
Having extolled these collections, we must confess shock at the visitor services offered by the museums housing the collections. The Hermitage is much better than it was back in 1994, but it, together with the others, makes a strong case that museum-parking lots, restaurants, and book stores are for the convenience and education of the visitors rather than just money-making ventures. In other words, if Congress ever decides to revisit the rules governing the unrelated business income tax, American museums should point to their Russian counterparts as a basis for keeping income from restaurants, parking lots, and gift shops exempt. After you have been shuffling along for three or four hours and your museum feet are killing you, a nice cup of tea or a beer with a sandwich become very important to the overall experience. Even more important, is a place to sit down.
Based on the entrance line that was visible throughout the day, the Hermitage must accommodate thousands of visitors each day. It takes at least a full day visit to do this museum justice and a two-day visit certainly could be justified. Yet, the cafeteria provides very limited food options and even more limited seating. We saw a couple of paintings in the Tretyakov Gallery that we would have liked to have remembered with a postcard or a book. However, there were virtually no postcards for sale and the museum catalogue was very poorly produced—the color matches were noticeably off.
The curation at many of the museums we visited was terrible. A history museum in Moscow that focuses on the Soviet era certainly had interesting objects, but they will not survive even decades given the poor lighting, humidity, and temperature conditions. That could be said for much of the work in Moscow's Pushkin Art Museum and the Fyodor Dostoevsky house in St. Petersburg.
In short, a visit to Russia makes one appreciate the museums we have in the United States and other industrialized countries. The Russian collections certainly are noteworthy, but the creature comforts and amenities in the Russian museums are pretty terrible—at least forty years behind Western standards. They do adversely affect the overall experience.
There is one thing, however, that many U.S. and Russian museums share in common: We found too many of the museums only provided explanations in Russian. Having traveled a great deal, we appreciate museums and other tourist attractions that provide information in multiple languages. Here, many museums in the United States are far behind the curve. Given globalization, United States museums should do a far better job of providing titles and explanations in multiple languages. Knowing what you are looking at and some context greatly improves the museum experience. It's time for United States museums to stop being so English-centric. If an institution is going to take foreign money it should accomodate the needs of foreign visitors.
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