Gatchina caretakers

Officials of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region argue about the ownership of the museum-reserve

The quiet bureaucratic war between officials of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region for the right to own the Gatchina State Museum-Reserve is close to completion. Last week, a visiting meeting of the board of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation was held in the northern capital, at which it was decided to put an end to the disputes that had been going on for several years about the ownership of the museum-reserve and completely transfer the historical complex to the city. And although this decision of the Ministry of Culture is purely advisory in nature, in St. Petersburg it was perceived as the readiness of federal officials to defend the museum and save Gatchina from destruction.

Disputes over Gatchina, at times turning into loud verbal skirmishes, continued for several years, and over the past two years real battles have broken out around the museum. The fact is that this former residence of Russian emperors is actually on the balance sheet of the budget of St. Petersburg, but is located on the territory of the Leningrad region. And if before the Leningrad region was satisfied with this situation, recently it has claimed serious rights to “Gatchina” - Governor Valery Serdyukov has publicly stated more than once that the region wants to manage the museum itself and has already found commercial structures that will willingly take on this. Simply put, the Leningrad region was going to use the museum-reserve partly as a representative residence for the regional government, partly as a publicly accessible hotel and restaurant complex. This does not suit either the museum workers themselves or the authorities of St. Petersburg, who have invested significant funds in the reconstruction of Gatchina.

“I have been working in Gatchina for seven years, and all these years I have been hearing conversations about what land will be taken away from me, where they will put cottages, where they will open hotels,” says Nikita Batenin, director of the Gatchina State Museum-Reserve. Two weeks ago, his efforts to save the complex as a museum were supported by eminent colleagues, including the heads of the largest St. Petersburg museums. All of them unanimously protested against plans to transform one of the most interesting museum-palace complexes into another official residence.

The authorities of St. Petersburg were satisfied with the decision of the officials of the Ministry of Culture and are now preparing documents in order to officially receive “Gatchina” on their balance sheet. “For us, the issue of departmental affiliation is not paramount, but you can’t call it secondary either,” Vasily Pankratov, deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg Culture Committee, explained the reasons for Smolny’s struggle for Gatchina. - When the building is managed by the region, the land is managed by the federation, and the city pays for the maintenance, nothing good will come of it. Because of this, for example, we cannot help restore the magnificent park around the palace; we have huge problems with the hydraulic systems - they are in poor condition, which threatens the palace itself.”

Now the Gatchina GMZ is experiencing great difficulties due to departmental confusion. Only 16% of the museum's 31 thousand square meters has been restored. m, which need restoration. In 2008, 99 million rubles were allocated for the restoration of Gatchina alone, and a little more than 190 million rubles for the maintenance of the museum. And most of these funds were allocated from the budget of St. Petersburg. And the government of the Leningrad region spends 126 million rubles on the entire maintenance of regional cultural institutions. Although, according to the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIK), more than 300 cultural heritage sites in the region are in urgent need of restoration.

“The main thing, despite the confrontation, is our funds,” says Nikita Batenin. “Today there are 14 thousand main storage units; we are doing a lot of work to return museum exhibits to Gatchina, mainly from Russian museums, where they were transferred under Soviet rule.”

Over the past three years, thanks to the increased financial support of Gatchina by the government of St. Petersburg, several halls have been opened in the museum, and the famous Priory Palace is open to visitors - a symbol of Gatchina, which attracts numerous tourists and guests. A small suite of rooms of Maria Feodorovna and rooms of Alexander III are open (they were closed for many decades). There are plans to restore the Greek Gallery next year. As a result, over the past five years alone, the number of museum visitors has doubled, and now more than 200 thousand tourists visit Gatchina annually.

Natalya SHKURENOK