State Hermitage Museum gets official namesake

Russia’s famous State Hermitage Museum has opened an official namesake hotel in St Petersburg. This is the first experiment of the kind in which a museum cooperates with hotel business executives. “The designers of this project didn’t try to reflect the Hermitage here,” Mikhail Piotrovsky, the Director General of the State Hermitage Museum said at the opening ceremony. “Some elements here reveal an obvious connection between the museum and the hotel but no attempts to copy anything are visible.” Pitrovsky said that this five-star hotel is the only one in Russia and in the world that has received the official right to use the Hermitage Museum’s trademarks on the basis of a licensing agreement. The museum will not be receiving any commercial profits from the hotel but the two will rather launch joint programmes. For instance, the customers staying at there will get “privileged rights” in the museum, Piotrovsky said. “We’ve set a very good precedent of a cultural institution and a business outlet working together,” he said. The hotel is located in a downtown building erected in the 1930’s. It housed a Food Industry Workers’ Club during the Soviet period. Complete overhaul was made inside the building with a due observance of all the requirements for protection of architectural monuments. The inside décor of the hotel echoes the décor of half at the State Hermitage Museum. Many things there are styled to resemble the old times - the decorative furnishings on the panels, door handles, parquet, and so on. Engravings depicting the Hermitage Museums can be seen in the lounges. Films and videol clips depicting the museum’s collection are demonstrated on overhead screens.