Museum director: job, profession: à hundred-year long experience of directorship at the Peterhof State museum-reserve

Considering the condition of the complex, at the early stage there were no plans to restore its interiors: the initial plan was to use the palace rooms as a holiday center to hold different mass cultural events and spectacles, to arrange exhibitions, to entertain people with concerts and films, lectures, chess and checkers games, to work with children, to open a restaurant, snack bars, etc. However, common sense prevailed. Belekhov, head of the KGIOP, succeeded in saving the palace at a special meeting dedicated to “the fate of suburban palaces” in Leningrad in 1944, and then at the Council of Ministers of the USSR in Moscow in 1948.

Under Shurygin's leadership, 1946 saw the beginning of restoration work on the cascades The Golden Hill and The Chessboard Hill. The earliest monument to be reconstructed was Peter the Great's palace Monplaisir. “When in August 1944 we were walking form the Chessboard Hill to Monplaisir, -- Shurygin recollected, -- from afar, it looked damaged but not severely, because the roof was intact. Upon coming closer, it became evident that it was a false impression. After closer inspection, it turned out that the condition of Monplaisir was appalling and much had been lost forever. For long months, everything here had been systematically and consciously destroyed and burnt. German invaders had left a stamp of their hatred for other nations and their culture” [2, p. 39]. Right after German troops were driven out, work began on cleaning the rooms, collecting and documenting fragments of decorations, checking the condition of the building. Arkhipov was engaged in the preparation of scientific and planning documents [26, p. 108].

The career of Shurygin in early 1948 came to an abrupt halt. The materials and audit act regarding financial and economic activity of the Director's Office of parks and palaces at Petrodvorets are evidence of a dramatic twist in his career. According to these documents, the director misappropriated construction materials intended for the construction and restoration of the fountains. Taking into account the complexity and controversies of the time when he lived and worked, we can express some doubts regarding the validity of charges he was accused of. Nevertheless, in April 1948, he was dismissed from director's post and became chief curator.

In January 1951, Shurygin expressed his desire to resign and left Peterhof for the KGIOP where he did not work long. The next thirty years, he was a researcher at the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism (Kazan Cathedral). In 1965, he defended his PhD thesis on the art of the sculptor Orlovskiy, and afterwards he authored numerous research papers.

Shurygin occupies a special place in the history of Peterhof for his important role in the very beginning of the post-war restoration of the reserve, of which he recounts in his memoirs. He also recollects the tragic death of the Peterhof “Landing troops” on October 5, 1941 [2, p. 48-50].

On May 6, 1948, Alexey Gerasimovich Demidov was transferred to Peterhof from the Kirovskiy District Soviet of Leningrad where he worked as head of the culture and education department (1906-?). The new director's great experience in organizing public events was a crucial reason for his appointment. The human factor also played its role: Demidov and Shurygin had strained relations; we can suppose that Shurygin's demotion left him unhappy he began to lodge complaints about the state of things at the museum to the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Soviet and Petrodvorets district Party committee. The conflict between the two administrators affected negatively the entire atmosphere in the collective.

The condition of the Grand Palace still remained one of the primary issues for the director. Soon after Demidov's appointment, Act No. 3448 of September 14, 1948 “On restoration of the Grand Palace at Peterhof” was adopted by the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It ordered, “to reconstruct the Grand Palace at Petrodvorets as a historical and architectural monument”. It required the preservation of the former appearance of the facades with the exception of the Church Building which was to be one-domed in accordance with Rastrelli's original design. Historical interiors of five rooms of the Grand Palace were to be restored -- the Chesme Hall, the Throne Hall, the White Room, the Mirror (Dance) Room and the Formal Merchants Staircase. In 1951, architects Vasiliy Savkov Savkov Vasiliy Mitrofanovich (1907-1978), architect and restorer, one of the founders of the Leningrad school of restoration; together with Kazanskaya he worked on the project and headed the reconstruction of the Grand Palace (1949-1974). and Yevgenia Kazanskaya produced the concept and design project of the Grand Palace restoration in accordance with the historical appearance of the palace's interiors.

Cultural work with masses, at which the director had been so good at previously, was not the first priority at Peterhof which was undergoing the process of a complex restoration. An expert in another field was required. At the end of 1949, Demidov was transferred to the position of director of Gatchina Palace, the restoration of which was not even considered at that time. As a result, the director's post at Peterhof became vacant once again.

The next director Nikolai Grigorievich Tikhomirov (1908-?) who had previously been director of the Philharmonic Society in Smolensk, had neither the necessary administrative expertise nor an understanding of the restoration process. However, on December 30, 1949, he was sent to Peterhof where he worked for two years. His dismissal was caused by a seemingly trifle reason: the officials, in charge of the city's culture, noticed that the director's wife, the singer O. M. Mukhtarova, gave too many concerts at Peterhof. During his directorship, she took part in 38 out of 41 concerts at the museum.

The wave of changing directors most likely worried city officials. The Chief Office of Culture of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Soviet seemed surprisingly reluctant to find a director for Peterhof with a special training in history, art history and architecture; instead, it strictly pursued the policy of filling vacancies with cultural education workers.

Mikhail Stepanovich Pavlov (1892-1951), an experienced party functionary in the sphere of culture who had been director of the Center for cultural activities at Petrodvorets, took over as director at Peterhof on January 26, 1951, but died shortly thereafter.

On January 2, 1952, Alexei Nikolaevich Dometskiy became the new director. A graduate of the Higher School of Trade-Unions, a war veteran awarded with orders and medals, he came to Peterhof after being the head of the culture and education department of the Kirovskiy District Soviet. The beginning of his work coincided with the restoration of the facades of the Grand Palace, which were completed in 1957. The ten-year long directorship of Dometskiy was a time when many monuments were restored: the Hermitage (1952), Monplaisir (1961), The Chessboard Hill (1953) and The Golden Hill (1955), the fountains Conservatory (1956), Favourite, Mezheumny (1957), Little fir (1958) and others. From 1956, the Bath building of Monplaisir was under reconstruction. In 1957, the monument to Peter the Great by Antokolsky was placed in the Lower Park. During the war, it was plundered and a new statue was cast in accordance with the author's model.

Though Dometskiy established himself as a demanding administrator respected by his colleagues, one can suggest that the atmosphere at the museum was far from quiet. The chief curator N. N. Fyodorova remembered that Dometskiy “had to leave against his will, because of slander and injustice. ...He was bothered by audits, some financial infringements were revealed, and he was accused of nepotism because the director's wife was the chief accountant of the museum” [27, p. 77]. museum palace imperial

Documents confirm the fact of repeated financial audits of the Director's Office, and in 1960, the director was reprimanded “for severe infringements in personnel and financial discipline, an absence of financial control and excess spending of state money”.

On the 26 of June 1962, after another audit, Dometskiy was dismissed. From July 2, he began working as deputy director of the State Museum of Leningrad History. Considering Fyodorova's evidence, a dismissal for “severe financial infringements” followed by the appointment to a quite responsible post produces a strange impression: a traditional rotation of personnel typical of that time can be suggested. Besides, the documents listing the director's “sins” can suggest that the circumstances requiring certain steps on behalf of Dometskiy in a number of cases could have been “beyond his capacity”. In general, the mentioned “slips” of Dometskiy look rather insignificant.

Suffering from serious lung disease, he made up his mind to change the climate and left Peterhof for Dushanbe. From 1963, Dometskiy worked for the Ministry of Culture of Tajikistan and dealt with protecting monuments. Upon returning to Leningrad in 1965, he took up work at the State Museum of Leningrad History and headed the museum complex of “The Fortress at Shlisselburg”. In 1970, he began to work for a newly established research and restoration workshop at the Chief Office of Culture. In 1972, he tragically died and was buried at Babigon cemetery in Peterhof.

After Dometskiy's dismissal, Anatoliy Alexandrovich Grigoriev (1916--?) was appointed director in 1962. He used to be an actor and director of the club “Krasnozname- nets”. Under his command, a long-awaited event took place -- the first rooms of the Grand Palace with restored interiors opened in May 1964: The Portrait Hall, The Divan Room, The Partridge Reception Room and The Crown Room. An exhibition was opened in the palace devoted to the history of the Peterhof complex, its birth, destruction during the war and post-war reconstruction. The desire of visitors to get into the Palace was so great (their number exceeded pre-estimated figures by four times!) that the management of the museum failed to organize expedient tours of the formal rooms. Numerous negative commentary followed, which probably led to Grigoriev's dismissal and his transfer to another job at the club of “Bolshevichka” factory.

In 1964 for the first time in Peterhof history, a woman became the museum's director. Yevgenia Ionovna Korchagina (1919--?) was raised in a working family and studied at the Institute of Chemistry and Technology named after the Leningrad Soviet, though she did not finish it. During the siege of Leningrad, she served in the anti-aircraft defense forces and kept vigilance on the roofs of houses during air raids putting out firebombs. After the war, she received additional training at the Higher School of Trade-Unions named after N. M. Shvernik. In 1965, Korchagina employed Znamenov to work at Peterhof and warned him about the hardships of museum work. The latter recalled, “She was not a Party member, but took an active part in Party activities... She attended Party meetings and had great experience in museum work, too. She worked at the Summer Palace in the Summer Gardens and benefitted from this work. She knew St. Petersburg's museums well” [IV].

Korchagina, like other “Soviet” directors, did not enjoy the respect of the museum staff. They considered her an undereducated person and, according to some witnesses, often made fun of her. Yet, she worked at the museum for four years, longer than many of her other predecessors. Peterhof began to welcome guests of honor, its director was supposed to behave in a different way -- to wear a business suit, be self-confident, be able to tell the history of the palace, and to speak foreign languages. “I am not aware of the actual reason for her dismissal, but the district Party officials strongly recommended her to leave voluntarily because of squabble and rumors which divided the collective and which Yevgenia Ionovna failed to cope with”, her successor Vasiliy Konyukhov remembered [V] Courtesy of the author's daughter Konyukhova E. V..

Vasiliy Ivanovich Konyukhov (1930-2013) started his career at the Leningrad electromechanical plant that produced typewriters. His political career began in 1963 when he took the post of instructor of the organization department in the Petrodvorets district Party committee. The committee paid special attention to the museum-palace complex, as he recalled. Some important party leader once said that, “without such a famous museum-palace complex that is being restored by direct orders from the government, there would never be a Party committee in this district”. This emphasizes how significant the complex was!” [V].

In 1965, Konyukhov took a correspondence course at the Higher School of Party Work at the Communist Party Central Committee in Moscow, and in 1969, he received his diploma of higher education. Forty years later, he wrote about his appointment at the museum mentioning that after Korchagina's dismissal, “neither the Central Office nor district Party committee were able to find the right person to fill the position. Zoya Alexan- drovna Novikova, then a leader of the Party district organization, offered me the post. She spent a while trying to persuade me to accept it. I realized that this high position required `our own' person and at the same time, I hesitated, as I had no education in history or art history. Finally, I was compelled to agree: the Party ordered and I obeyed. I was dispatched to work as director of museum-palaces and parks at Petrodvorets on the decree of Petrodvorets district Party committee of November 15, 1968. The order of my appointment was signed by Arnold Vitol, head of the Department for Culture of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Soviet” [V] Vitol Arnold Yanovich (1922-2000), scriptwriter, journalist, honored worker of culture of the RSFSR. From 1962 he was head of department of culture at the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Soviet..

From the very first days, the director set before himself a task of carefully examining the condition of all Peterhof property. “I wanted to get a general idea of how much work had been completed before my appointment as director and how much of the museum's property was yet to be restored, -- Konyukhov remembered, -- First of all, our concern was the fountains of the Lower and Upper Parks. We realized very well that people coming to Petrodvorets were eager to stroll in the parks and admire the fountains. At that time, 147 fountains were functioning” [V].

He discussed the prospects for Peterhof together with Savkov and Kazanskaya, meticulously studied the surviving black and white photographs of interiors, which were later used to make drawings and templates in accordance with the original interior designs. The restoration of the Throne Hall and the Chesme Hall (1969) was soon completed; the Chinese Study (1971-1972) and the Blue Reception Room (1975) were also restored.

Konyukhov viewed his primary task as establishing contacts with his colleagues: all his predecessors talked about tense relations among the employees at Peterhof. He managed to assemble a group of professionals who skillfully served the cause. Among the director's close assistants and like-minded people there were I. M. Gurevich, deputy director for science; I. I. Savushkin, deputy director for general issues; V. P. Osadchiy, deputy director for cultural work with masses; V. V. Znamenov, chief curator; B. V. Lobovikov, chief engineer; K. K. Zabelina, head of park and garden department; L. S. Romanovich, head of guide and tour department; and researchers G. N. Goldovskiy, E. G. Myasoedova, V. M. Te- nikhina, M. I. Obaturova, N. V. Vernova, V. I. Korshunova.

“It was my duty to have them fulfill particular assigned work, especially that of the restoration of palace interiors. We had to solve urgent problems every day and included them in the agenda at meetings of department heads and middle level managers making appropriate decisions. The Chief Office of Culture, a unit of which we were, approved our yearly financial scheme and we had to adhere to it strictly. We took all the necessary measures to do that. Departments as well as suburban complexes were involved in the Socialist emulation”, the director wrote [V].

Before the summer season of 1969, major repairs on the main fountain water supply conduit were completed. New cast-iron pipe barrels were laid along the way, this important work being done by Peterhof fountain makers. The position of a fountain foreman was always considered to be the most important one and directors sought to get on well with the team of fountain makers. “The position of a fountain foreman is a key because fountains are the most important elements of our palace complex, its pride and beauty; they are silver jingling and singing jets which symbolize the symphony of fountains”, Konyukhov recalled [V].

Now the museum workers were faced with the task of accommodating exhibits in the restored palace as many historical objects were destroyed or lost during the war. It was time to find copies and replicas in order to replace them. However, the budget did not have any money for the acquisition of museum objects.

Another important task was the organization of cultural events for the masses, public holidays, light and music shows, fireworks, ballet performances and weekend entertainment in order to attract visitors. The central part of the Grand Cascade, surrounded by illuminated fountains and adjoining alleys of the park, served as the main backdrop. Many “Peterhof festivities” were ideologically loaded, which can be seen in their names: “The road of glorious work”, “Remembrance torch”, “The rest day of Leningrad builders” and others. Following the tradition, each of these ended with a colorful display of fireworks. In 1973, the museum celebrated the 250th anniversary of Peterhof fountains.

On September 1, 1977, Vadim Valentinovich Znamenov (born in 1936) was appointed director. By that time, he had worked as chief curator at the museum for twelve years. Contrary to his predecessors, he had professional training -- he was the first out of fourteen directors to have graduated from the history department of Leningrad State University named after Zhdanov and, as he knew the city history quite well, he had worked as a tour guide for many years.

“I worked honestly and never thought of the director's post, -- Znamenov said later, -- Besides, I still believe that it would have been more beneficial if I had worked as chief curator at Peterhof. In Russia it works this way. If you want to succeed, you must be a director. In this case, you will attain certain independence in making decisions, you will be able to define a problem and solve it. You need to just fit in a legal framework and that's it” [12, p. 180].

Each period of the director's work witnessed increasing and expanding restoration work in the Grand Palace where new rooms opened one after another: The Blue Room and The Oak Staircase (1978), the Audience Hall (1979), the Merchants Staircase (1985), the Dance (Merchants) Room (1995), The Church of the Grand Palace (2011). New venues were opened: the Cottage at the very end of 1978 after its long reconstruction, Marli in 1982, Catherine's Building of Monplaisir in 1986, the Bath and the Assembly Hall of Monplaisir in 1997 and the Gothic Chapel in 2006.

Visitors at Peterhof could not help admiring the new fountains in the Lower Park with the restored fountains added year after year: The Golden Hill, Cloche, Menagerie (1980), The Lion Cascade (2000). In 1989-1995, major restoration work on the Grand Cascade was completed.

In 1983, the museum complex received its new name “The State Palace and Park Museum-Reserve in Petrodvorets”. The title common for all European natural parks reflected an unfolding transformation of Peterhof landscapes. “The status of the museum-reserve... carries more and more weight, -- a local newspaper `Zarya Kommunizma' said, -- To make sure, just visit some detached plots of the Lower Park, especially in its western part. Constructions representing the so-called small forms, alien to the reserve featuring landscape architecture of the 18th century are being removed from there. An ice-cream storage and a cafe have already been demolished near The Black Slope. The snack bar and adjacent buildings located on the children's playground have been knocked down. Those ugly structures distorted the design, disrupted the composition of the park and the original concept of the complex” [11, p. 170]. Ideologically loaded culture was ousted from historical parks.

In 1990, the Peterhof Museum-Reserve together with other Petersburg suburbs was included into the list of UNESCO World Heritage objects. Its property expanded with the addition of the Chevalier Palace, Ministerial and Maids-of-Honor Houses. Alongside with the restoration of interior museums, it became possible to open museums of a new type -- those which were culturally and historically connected with the remarkable cultural phenomena of St. Petersburg: the Benois Family Museum (1988), the Museum of Art Collectors (2002), the House of Playing Cards (2007). The wooden palace of Peter the Great in Strelna, the oldest building of the entire Museum-Reserve, supplemented the architectural complex. In 2006, the palace and park complex of Oranienbaum was incorporated into the Peterhof complex. A comprehensive restoration of the Farm Palace began in the park of Alexandria.

The period of rapid growth of the Peterhof collections is mainly associated with Vadim Znamenov, a connoisseur of artistic objects and a museum collector. In order to open new exhibitions, numerous elements of home décor were needed and as he said, he was “able to find and purchase many things. About three hundred new objects were acquired for the collection every year. “`Not a day without a line' -- that's how we jokingly defined our motto, because on receiving every object we enter a separate line for it in the `Register'” [11, p. 181]. With the fourteenth director, the Museum-Reserve, proud of its history, marked two notable dates -- 300 years of St. Petersburg (2003) and 300 years of Peterhof (2005).

Rarely did Peterhof's directors leave any evidence of their professional calling or evaluate their role in the museum's history. In the magazine History of St. Petersburg, Znamenov shared his views on what human and professional qualities a museum leader should have. “He must be a person who treats history as a history of his own life. He also must be a person tinted with romanticism. The history of a Place must be loved or hated (hatred is one of the facets of love), but one cannot be indifferent to it. If these qualities are present, this person has the chance of becoming a nice museum worker and museum leader” [28, p. 6].

To understand the activities of the fourteen Peterhof directors turned out to be not an easy task. In our analysis, we tried to rely on documents, memoirs and oral evidence; however, the sources describing official facts quite often contradict everyday facts, which play an important role in people's life.

The analysis of the fourteen biographies resulted in a number of general conclusions: the majority of Peterhof directors held office for two or three years and one can state with certainty that this time is rather short for a museum leader to understand the specifics of their work. Only three of them held their director posts for more than ten years -- Arkhipov (13 years), Dometskiy (10 years), Znamenov (31 years) and the achievements of the museum in the first years of their work are evident.

All the directors had a different education, but only one Znamenov had special training. Few of them, Rebane, Shurygin and Znamenov, by the moment of taking over as directors had some previous experience with museum work. Most directors were Party bureaucrats with varying experience in administrative work. Heading a museum was considered to be cultural work with the masses, and experience of this kind was deemed to be the main criterion for the appointment to a post as Peterhof museum director. This extremely shortsighted view was at the base of many problems which hindered the museum's development.

The merits of the leading Peterhof directors in many respects were determined by the tasks set forth before them by the time. Arkhipov succeeded in greatly preserving the historical image of the parks and palaces. Rebane evacuated the most precious part of the collection at the beginning of the war. Shurygin was in charge of the post-war restoration and opened parks and fountains for the visitors. Dometskiy continued in Shurygin's wake opening the first restored palaces and pavilions. Konyukhov gathered the first team of professionals, and Znamenov was particularly successful in acquiring objects for the collection and opening principally new exhibitions.

After cultural and historical analysis of their work, we can state with certainty that each of them was a person born and brought up by their time, and the time left an imprint on their personalities, their thoughts and motifs behind their decisions. And this was an unalterable process. However, making an attempt to paint their “portraits against the background of time” allows us to take a fresh look at the hundred-year long history of Peterhof.

Serious changes took place during the last decades in the museum life of Russia and St. Petersburg. Their social role became more important, accessibility of museums became a priority, and museum attendance has sharply increased. As before, museums are repositories of treasures, they collect, study and display cultural objects, but the society at present sets before them other important tasks. Museum communities have learned to live under the market economy. Long-term planning of their activities, in many respects, determines St. Petersburg's development, which associates museum life with the increasing number of tourists.

Museum directors of today have special training, quite often, they have degrees and they know foreign languages. As a rule, they are engaged in the academic process: they are permanently invited to teach at universities. Very often, they participate in discussions with politicians, businessmen, lawyers, economists and the like.

In the last decade, museum directors have become special managers of culture. In the market economy, their functions and duties underwent changes. It has always been essential for a director to be able to evaluate a situation and make a decision. The analysis conducted shows that the directors had to take risks, adhere to their principles and beliefs, trying not to fear making mistakes and to admit them when they did occur.

The director has always been in charge of the economic policy of the museum. Together with financial departments, they define the financial policy of the institution. Today this policy has drastically changed as the museum can place tender offers and select contractors to do various kinds of work, which at times makes things more complicated for the administration. State funded museums are given the right to take full control of the money earned and received from other sources. The museum began practicing internal audits.

Recently the museum has started to receive financial support from the “Friends of Peterhof”, a charity organization at the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve whose members are foreign and Russian companies, charity foundations and individuals whose donations promote the museum's development. Their donations help to carry out different projects, restore the collection, publish books, and organize exhibitions and different traditional festivals. The museum pays special attention to its benefactors inviting them to the openings of exhibitions, special events and festivals. Every year the museum organizes a Birthday of its Patrons' Society. Close contacts with members of society is one of the most important functions for the director. Their personal participation in the events, attracting benefactors, invariably provides good results.

Restoration work at Peterhof has its peculiarities. While the post-war reconstruction was an ideological project, whose success was confirmed by the time, the present day situation with the ruined monuments is more difficult to resolve. Modern day research proves the need of reconsidering a number of clauses of the Venetian Charter: nowadays with the museum director's involvement, a new innovative project of restoring the Lower Cottage has been launched. The Cottage was demolished in the 1960's, but after restoration its historical fragments will blend with the new ones manufactured from materials different from the original.

The museum directors are at the head of economic and administrative activities, they are engaged in scientific work, contribute to culture by writing books, conduct research, and organize exhibitions, which broaden the field of scholarly knowledge. Though museums are officially not scientific institutions, and the post of a “researcher” is replaced by that of a “specialist”, young employees express interest in working in archives, they study the museum's history, come up with new attributions for museum art objects and are busy with publications. In this respect, revisiting and rethinking the museum's history throughout the 20th century, timed with the centenary of this imperial residence-museum has become a breakthrough.

For a long time, museums existed in the atmosphere of militant atheism. At present, the situation has changed and the museum's director has to conduct a dialogue with Russian orthodoxy, to look for a liaison between the religious and secular mindset. We should agree with Mikhail Piotrovsky that culture and religion do not oppose each other; on the contrary, “they supplement each other, though they speak different languages. Moreover, in a time of trouble, they can replace each other. When there was no church in this country, information about religion was passed through museums” [29, p. 104].

Representatives of the religious and secular community have differing views on the most important modern day problems and they evaluate cultural events differently. They, however, understand the need of restoring the monuments of religious architecture and the possibility of displaying museum collections in them. If approached rationally, the question of worship in religious quarters of the museum can be resolved with a sensible compromise. Once a year, on the day of consecration, a service is held for museum employees in three restored and consecrated churches at Peterhof -- in St. Alexander Nevsky Church (Gothic Chapel) in Alexandria, in the Court church of the Grand Palace -- the Church of St. Peter and Paul, and in the Grand Palace (Menshikov) church in Oranien- baum -- the Church of St. Panteleimon).

Exhibition activity in the modern world has acquired quite a new quality, though in landscape museums the attention to exhibitions is not great. Visitors come here, first of all, to see the fountains and to stroll in the parks. The museum is successfully developing outreach programs. For the last decade the exhibitions from Peterhof collection were organized in many Russian cities -- in Moscow, Tambov, Lipetsk, Pskov, Petrozavodsk, Penza and others. A new type of billboard exhibitions in the park alleys has been suggested where they tell about different events in the history of Peterhof. The Museum-Reserve has acquired a new experience of organizing exhibitions in Italy, Germany, Slovakia, China, etc. The first branch of the museum of a federal status was opened in another region and exhibitions from Peterhof are held in the Aseev mansion in Tambov.

The museum is constantly replenishing its collection, with the director being chairman of the purchasing committee. Directors should understand better than anybody else that a museum is not just a repository of antiques. Directors should not buy or accept as gifts those objects that are of no particular interest to the existing collection. While enriching it, the museum pursues the purpose of acquiring new objects for its historical collection of art works and the collection of objects illustrating life of the imperial household.

PR activities are on the rise in the museum. In the last decade, the practice has been established of publishing museum annual reports, which are certainly of interest for the present and the future and are publications of a new independent type. Traditional interaction with the media acquires new norms, which allow new forms of museum work to be presented to the public. The museum is actively engaging in social networks. A special “face” of the museum is its Internet site, from which the director constantly addresses a million-wide audience.

The museum actively uses designer methods, theatrical performances on the premises of the museum with the use of information technologies; the museum is constantly searching for unusual ways of displaying its collection. In fact, the use of plasma screen TVs with prerecorded historical and reference information is another “method of supplementary exhibitions” of the 21st century, which by no means disrupts the wholeness of the historical space. Exhibitions of recent years, such as “Entertainments at Court”, “Summer

Residents at Peterhof, Oranienbaum through Ages”, “The World of Playing Cards” were quite costly and it was the museum's director who took responsibility for their organization considering cost-efficiency and the growing attendance of the museum.

Work with children has also changed. The new education program “The New Farm” was conceived as a set of traditional classrooms, creative workshops, playgrounds and multimedia exhibitions. As an educational center at the museum, the center for children is void of any didactic instruction known in the past as “propaganda and agitation”; the work of this center aims at disclosing the creative potential of the young generation, it helps them to get the general idea of all types of museum professions, including that of a museum director.

In the footsteps of historical festivals, the museum organizes them using modern technologies -- a fusion of mapping, light, sound, and other multimedia techniques, with an unchanged part of all Peterhof amusements -- large scale fireworks. Organizing performances on the Grand Cascade, the director can perform not only administrative but also a creative function.

In recent years, museum attendance has sharply increased. At this stage, the museum's publicity is in conflict with its repository function, and this process will aggravate. Considering the priority of the latter, the director has to organize the system of admissions with a strict system of logistics as well as a system of museum security.

The museum today develops its own management offering its visitors a variety of services: restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops, concerts in museum rooms and many other things. The museum organizes working places and sources of income around it -- shops, hotels, and transportation.

For decades, the museum at Peterhof has been a dominant urban “enterprise” in the Petrodvorets district of St. Petersburg. The fact that people living here work near their homes heightens their responsibility and makes them feel more interested in their jobs because Peterhof is their “small Fatherland”.

Today museums are members of the organization “The Union of Russian Museums” -- an association of legal entities founded in 2001. It numbers over four hundred museums from 75 regions of the country, which now participate in “The strategy of development of museum activities in the Russian Federation for the period until 2030”, which determines the goals, principles, main guidelines and tasks in the sphere of state support of the museums in the Russian Federation.

The museum is a living and constantly changing body. The notion of it as a quiet place of work for specifically prepared people is a notion of the past. Today the museum plays a very important role in social life of the public, and the director is in close contact with the community. It would be a mistake to say that to be the museum director is a vocation: there are few who strive for this work because they consider it not particularly creative. However, if a person agrees to take this job, they become involved in a unique profession, which gives them a chance to experience the happiness of victories as well as the bitterness of losses. This is why the title of this article, in my opinion, is subject to debate. Every museum director used to solve, solves and will solve the issues encountered as director differently.

The analysis of historical experience and modern day situation necessary for understanding the criteria of evaluating the museum director as a successful manager, illustrates that first of all their personal resources should be assessed which are often more important than museum attendance, exhibition projects, financial success and many other factors.

It is profound knowledge, communicative and partnership qualities and, most of all, the creative potential of the director that determines their success in a modern museum community.

References

1. Tikhomirova, Marina. Monuments. People. Events. From the Notes of a Museum Worker. 2nd ed. Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR Publ., 1984. (In Russian)

2. Shurygin, Iakov. Peterhof. Chronicle of Restoration. St. Petersburg: Abris Publ., 2000. (In Russian)

3. Rebane, Martin. “Some Memories of how the Values of Peterhof were Saved in 1941”. In Dvortsy i voi- na. K 100-letiiu nachala Pervoi mirovoi voiny: sbornik statei po materialam nauchno-prakticheskoi kon- ferentsii GMZ “Petergof”, 2014, ed. by Olga Kappol', 342-350. St. Petersburg: Evropeiskii dom Publ., 2015. (In Russian)

4. Vasilev, Boris, and Vladimir Potapenko. Academician of Architecture Fedor Gustavovich Berenstam: Materials for a Biography. St. Petersburg: Filateliia Publ., 2010. (In Russian)

5. Chapkina, Sof'ia. “Fedor Gustavovich Burenstam -- The First Curator of the Peterhof Palace-Museum” Russkoe iskusstvo, no. 1 (2011): 83-7. (In Russian)

6. Petrov, Pavel, and Tat'iana Iakovleva. “I did not Feel Justified to Give up my Service to Art and Science”. Mir muzeia, no. 11 (2017): 16-20. (In Russian)

7. Kal'nitskaia, Elena. “Making of the Palaces of Museums: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”. In Ot dvortsa -- k muzeiu: sbornik statei po materialam nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii GMZ “Petergof”, 2012, ed. by Olga Kappol', 7-20. St. Petersburg: Evropeiskii dom Publ., 2013. (In Russian)

8. Arkhipov, Nikolai. Research on the History of Peterhof: A Collection of Scientific Papers. St. Petersburg: GMZ “Petergof” Publ., 2016. (Petergofskaia letopis'). (In Russian)

9. Petrov, Pavel. “Martin M. Rebane: The Fate of a Museum Figure”. In Muzei i voina: sud'ba liudei, kollekt- sii, zdanii: sbornik dokladov vserossiiskoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii, priurochennoi k 80-letiiu Ekaterinburgskogo muzeia izobrazitel'nykh iskusstv i 75-letiiu evakuatsii kollektsii Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha na Ural. 4-6 aprelia 2016g., ed. by Zoia Taiurova, 188-191. Ekaterinburg: OOO “PP `Arti- kul'” Publ., 2016. (In Russian)

10. Pompeev, Iurii. Peterhof. History of the Museum. St. Petersburg; Petergof: Abris Publ., 2005. (In Russian)

11. Pompeev, Iurii. “The Creators of Peterhof”. Neva, no. 9 (2005): 158-82. (In Russian)

12. Kal'nitskaia, Elena. “The Age of Pioneers”. In Vek restavratsii prigorodnykh dvortsov. Tragediia i triumf. K 100-letiiu muzeinoi zhizni byvshikh tsarskikh rezidentsii: sbornik statei po materialam nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii GMZ “Petergof”, 2018, science ed. by Pavel Petrov, general ed. by Aleksandr Belousov, 20-37. St. Petersburg: GMZ “Petergof” Publ., 2019. (Problemy sokhraneniia kul'turnogo nasle- diia. XXI vek, IX). (In Russian)

13. Belousov, Aleksandr. “Is the Director's Chair Soft? Heads of Peterhof Palaces-Museums and Parks in the 20th century”. In Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik “Tsarskoe Selo”. Dvortsy, osobniaki, usad'by. Muzeinyi format. Materialy XXIV Tsarskoselskoi nauchnoi konferentsii, 67-80. St. Petersburg: Serebri- anyi vek Publ., 2018. (In Russian)

14. Benua, Aleksandr. “Palace-Museums”. In AleksandrBenua razmyshliaet... Stat'i, pis'ma, vyskazyvaniia, foreword, prepared and comment. by Il'ia Zil'bershtein and Aleksei Savinov, 71-83. Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik Publ., 1968. (In Russian)

15. Benua, Aleksandr. Diary, 1918-1924. 3rd ed. Moscow: Zakharov Publ., 2016. (In Russian)

16. “Petergof”, gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik (Sankt-Peterburg). Peterhof. Century of the Museum: To the 100th Anniversary of the Peterhof Museum, project manager Elena Kal'nitskaia. St. Petersburg: GMZ “Petergof” Publ., 2018. (Vek muzeev). (In Russian)

17. Platonova, Natal'ia. “The First Steps in Protecting Monuments of Revolutionary Petrograd (To the Publication of Documents from P P Pokryshkin's Personal Archive)”. Rossiiskii Arkheologicheskii ezhe- godnik, no. 4 (2014), 480-98. (In Russian)

18. Lukomskii, Georgii. The Artist and the Revolution, 1917-1922. Berlin: E. A. Gutnov Publ., 1923. (In Russian)

19. Raskin, Abram, and Tat'iana Uvarova. “Return of the Name: Nikolai Ilyich Arkhipov” Pskov, no. 33 (2010): 129-43. (In Russian)

20. Kal'nitskaia, Elena. “Unknown Episode from the Life of the Grand Palace in Peterhof ”. In Dvortsy i so- bytiia. K 300-letiiu Bolshogo Petergofskogo dvortsa: sbornik statei po materialam nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii GMZ “Petergof”, 2015, ed. by Olga Kappol', 68-75. St. Petersburg: GMZ “Petergof” Publ., 2016. (Problemy sokhraneniia kul'turnogo naslediia. XXI vek, VI). (In Russian)

21. Bondarev, Sergei. “Museum Activity in the Great Peterhof Palace in 1926-1941: Traditions and Innovation”. In Dvortsy i sobytiia. K 300-letiiu Bolshogo Petergofskogo dvortsa: sbornik statei po materialam nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii GMZ “Petergof”, 2015, ed. by Olga Kappol', 31-5. St. Petersburg: GMZ “Petergof” Publ., 2016. (Problemy sokhraneniia kul'turnogo naslediia. XXI vek, VI). (In Russian)

22. Luppol, Ivan. Dialectical Materialism and the Construction of the Museum. Report at the First All-Russian Museum Congress on December 1, 1930. Moscow; Leningrad: Nar. kom. pros. RSFSR. Sektor nauki Publ.; Ogiz Publ., 1931. (In Russian)

23. Kazanskaia, Evgeniia. “Memories of the Restoration of the Grand Peterhof Palace”. In Vek restavratsii prigorodnykh dvortsov. Tragediia i triumf. K 100-letiiu muzeinoi zhizni byvshikh tsarskikh rezidentsii: sbornik statei po materialam nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii GMZ “Petergof”, 2018, science ed. by Pavel Petrov, general ed. by Aleksandr Belousov, 392-409. St. Petersburg: GMZ “Petergof” Publ., 2019. (Problemy sokhraneniia kul'turnogo naslediia. XXI vek, IX). (In Russian)

24. Arkhipov, Nikolai, and Abram Raskin. Petrodvorets. Moscow: Iskusstvo Publ., 1961. (In Russian)

25. Petrov, Pavel. “General Inventory of Museum Valuables in Peterhof Palaces-Museums from 19381940”. In Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik “Tsarskoe Selo”. Dvortsy, osobniaki, usad'by. Muzeinyi format. Materialy XXIV Tsarskosel'skoi nauchnoi konferentsii, 464-80. St. Petersburg: Serebrianyi vek Publ., 2018. (In Russian)

26. Gessen, Aleksandr, and Marina Tikhomirova. “Restoration of the Monplaisir Palace in Petrodvorets”. In Nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut teorii, istorii i perspektivnykh problem sovetskoi arkhitektury. Teoriia i praktika restavratsionnykh rabot, 99-108. Moscow: Stroiizdat Publ., 1972, comp. 3. (In Russian)

27. Fedorova, Nonna. In the Alleys of Memory. St. Petersburg, 2011. (In Russian)

28. “You Have to Live Long in Russia. Interview with the President of the State Museum-Reserve `Peterhof' Vadim Valentinovich Znamenov”. Istoriia Peterburga, no. 1/53 (2010): 5-6. (In Russian)

29. Piotrovskii, Mikhail. There is no Taboo for Museums: 50 Articles in 10 Years. St. Petersburg: Arka Publ., 2016. (In Russian)

Ðàçìåùåíî íà Allbest.ru