It couldn’t have happened without Chubais

Director of the Polytechnic Museum Gurgen Grigoryan fired

On July 7, Minister of Culture Avdeev signed an order to dismiss General Director of the Polytechnic Museum Gurgen Grigoryan. On the same day, museum staff gathered for an emergency meeting. The museum's staff was addressed by...

On July 7, Minister of Culture Avdeev signed an order to dismiss General Director of the Polytechnic Museum Gurgen Grigoryan.

On the same day, museum staff gathered for an emergency meeting. Vladimir Tsvetnov, a representative of the Ministry of Culture, Deputy Director of the Department of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts, addressed the museum staff. The reasons for Grigoryan's removal from office were not named by him. As a result of the meeting, a decision was made by the team, which, among other things, states that he, the team, “does not understand the reasons that caused the minister’s hasty decision” and “sends a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with a request to deal with the circumstances dismissal of the general director of the museum.

“The decision to dismiss was completely unexpected for me,” says Gurgen Grigoryan. - On May 21, on the eve of my vacation, I had a meeting with Minister Avdeev, which took place in a very pleasant atmosphere for me. The minister said that I was being nominated for a state award (in view of the upcoming 75th birthday) and that he hoped that I would continue to connect my creative activity with the museum: I would become its president (now such a position has been introduced) and I will help the new director of the museum . Avdeev also asked if I had the most suitable candidate. At that time, there was no candidacy, but upon returning from vacation, I was ready to discuss this issue with Deputy Minister Busygin.”

However, according to Grigoryan, the meeting did not take place: “On July 6, I went to the minister myself, but he told through an assistant that he had no opportunity to meet with me. The next day, Deputy Minister Busygin handed me a dismissal order.

The dismissal was unexpected not only because the order for it was signed in the "holiday season". The general director was dismissed while the museum team was fulfilling the task of the Ministry of Culture - to present the concept of the Museum of Science in connection with the President's order. The concept, finally finalized by the museum staff headed by Grigoryan, lies mixed with packed things on the table in the director's office.

This, however, is not the only concept of the Science Museum. In parallel, the Development Fund of the Polytechnic Museum, or the RUSNANO Foundation, as they call it in the museum, is working on its version. “At the end of June, we terminated the agreement with the fund and banned the use of our brand,” says Grigoryan.

The foundation's plans include the construction of a modern building for the Polytechnic Museum outside of Moscow and, as suggested by Grigoryan and his colleagues, the subsequent "relocation" of the museum from its historic building. “The RUSNANO Foundation announced an international tender for the development of the concept of the museum. My meetings with Anatoly Chubais, the chief trustee of the foundation, showed the absolute discrepancy between our approaches to the modernization of the museum,” says Grigoryan.