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"They just strangle us"
The scandals around the St. Isaac's Cathedral with the advent of the new director Yuri Mudrov were subsided, but opponents of the transfer of the State Museum-Reserve "Isaac's Cathedral" Church believe that silence is deceiving: dismissal in the museum is ongoing, its departments are gradually turning the work.
The latest dismissal at the State Museum-Reserve "Isaac's Cathedral" turned out to be louder than the previous ones: on October 9, the head of the scientific and innovative projects of the Isaac's Cathedral, Doctor of Philosophy Ilona Khitarov received the corresponding notification. She has been working in the museum since 2000, even under the start of the legendary director Georgy Butikov, who led the museum from 1968 to 2002. In response to the reproaches of the leadership in the “sluggishness” of her work, she posted on her page photographs of numerous certificates, diplomas, letters and letters of thanks for participating in various projects, forums, scientific conferences, including gratitude from the University of St. Petersburg and the City Culture Committee.
She writes about her work as follows: “Before June 1, there was a successful unit that included the scientific and editing sector, the sector for working with schools and the sector for working with low-mobility visitors. The whole unit has successfully worked and received gratitude ... Now successfully operating projects and directions are closed.”
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0:00 0:02:57 Download the media fileIlona Khitarova talks about how, lying in the hospital, she called many times and wrote by e -mail the new director of the museum Yuri Mudrov. As having gone to work, since the beginning of October, I unsuccessfully tried to meet with him or at least talk on the phone - because he had never ever asked her work, but did not even meet her personally.
In addition, Khitarova published a fragment of notification of the dismissal of one of her colleagues, commenting on it as follows: “The document has an incoming number and signature of the director ... The girl works in the museum 13 years old, she has two children. One child has not reached another three years of age. (Article 145 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, an unreasonable refusal to hire or unreasonable dismissal of a pregnant woman or woman who has children under the age of three years.” It is unfortunate that Yuri Vitalievich [Mudrov] does not meet his employees and without looking signing the documents. "
According to Khitarova, she became aware of the appearance of a new employee in her unit, although she herself was unfamiliar with him and did not sign any documents on his appointment. She calls this situation an anecdotic and reports that she is preparing a complaint to the labor inspectorate. "... either our museum has left the Russian Federation, or in the Labor Code of the TC, they made an amendment that determines its special status in the labor legislation of the Russian Federation," she concludes.
The press secretary of the State Museum-Reserve "Isaac's Cathedral" Igor Staheev does not believe that, continuing the dismissal and turning the work of entire departments, the director Yuri Mudrov is gradually getting rid of the second in the visit of the museum in St. Petersburg, turning it into the appendage of the cathedral.
- We are not talking about any mass reductions, they are pointed. As for Ilona Khitarova, she was engaged in scientific and innovative activities, following which the leadership decided to return to the previous form of scientific activity. That is, to recreate the scientific department in the form in which it existed earlier, a few years ago. Any large museum, such as Isaac's Cathedral, a full -fledged scientific department is simply necessary. We are not talking about any reductions-how rumors go-for the sake of transferring the Cathedral of the Church, in no case, we are simply gaining a strong team.
- How many people have been dismissed since summer?
- It is very difficult to say, because the museum constantly takes place in the museum and a set of new employees, all this is also due to the seasonality of the museum’s work, so I haven’t been able to say for sure, but from the summer at least 10 new employees have been hired, in which departments, I can’t say now. And about 20 or a little more, it was dismissed. Naturally, the new leadership looks at the organization in its own way, sees it in its own way. Perhaps, in the end, more employees will be hired than dismissed, this is a matter of time.
- What is the fundamental difference between the requirements for the new team - after all, the museum under the previous leadership was very successful?
- I would not say that. After all, it was according to the results of the activity that recently it was decided to replace the whole department so that we had a full -fledged scientific department, and the requirements for it will be the same as in the Russian Museum or in the Hermitage.
It is worth noting that the museum staff talk about a much larger number of dismissed colleagues. In addition, the scientific department, according to Staheev, is still a matter of the future, but the concert department, according to the former music editor, as well as the press secretary of the Marina Kornakova department, has been living in recent months.
The concert department is now working in extreme conditions, the scientific department is also under the blow
- Now in the museum we see a stunned department of cultural projects, which was engaged in exhibition activities. At the same time, the situation was presented in the media completely biased, because the exhibition work was conducted quite actively, and the information for journalists was given from the words of Mudrov, and it turned out that this department was not doing anything for years, ”says Marina Kornakova . - It’s generally difficult to objectivity here: everyone was struck by the words of Mudrov that a whole regiment of administrators is working in the concert department. In fact, there were four of them, now there was only one - despite the fact that tickets and controllers are also dismissed. So now one administrator does their work, even at the entrance. The invited people used to work before, and if two entrances were opened in the cathedral, then television, guests were usually included in the service, and all the others were from the main one, and the administrators stood here and here. Now one person runs from the door to the door, and even checks tickets-there are no controllers. Now the dismissed employees continue to help their colleagues: former administrators go to work and help at the most difficult concerts. I have been dismissed from July 1, but, as before, I send press releases and repertoire. We understand that the concerts will stop otherwise, because all the paid advertising is cut off, sales are not bad - everything is done to strangle the work of the concert department. You can’t do anything without advertising now, and we even have such an inexpensive advertisement as on Echo of St. Petersburg, unfortunately, has been stopped. So the concert department is now working in extreme conditions, and the scientific department, as you know, is also under the blow.
The words of Kornakova are confirmed by another employee of the concert department, who has not yet called his name, so as not to complicate the already difficult life of his colleagues. Igor , we will call him this way, believes that there are two months left to live.
- Actually, the concert department is gone, it was destroyed. Apparently, one department will remain, which is managed by Deputy Director Boris Podolsky. Everything will be fine there, this is a department that is in charge of reconstruction and restoration. About 120 million rubles a year are spent on reconstruction, and the museum today earns 300 million. There was not enough money. It is clear that when the cathedral is transferred to the church, the museum in the basement will close, they will only be allowed upstairs. The colonnade will earn 150 millions, this will be enough for reconstruction and restoration - so they counted, and everything else is superfluous. And then Mudrov does not even understand what is the matter, they say to him - and he does. I think the idea belongs to Podolsky, he is a very smart person, it seems to me that he proposed this path - a decrease in the museum. Somewhere in the ministry this was approved-after all, everyone wants to fulfill the promise given by the patriarch, but no one knows how to do it. So they begin to cut off the tail in pieces. This, of course, hurts. The concert department was not immediately closed - we had a very large plan, the choir made 120 concerts a year and an orchestra without a choir about the same amount, 240 concerts in the city are very noticeable. Nevertheless, all this is curling up. For example, we will no longer have concerts in the basilica of St. Ekaterina on Nevsky 32, Mudrov uttered a sacramental phrase that organ art is not our art. In addition, it sounded: what is we feeding this unknown organization, Basilica? In fact, we gave them one tenth of the money made out for tickets, and everyone was satisfied. You sold tickets for 6 million, well, and pay 600 thousand from them. Our accountant immediately slipped the contract - imagine, we pay, we pay 600 thousand! And I was invited to explain - and in order to say that we are finishing with the basilica. But I said that this is wrong, now we will have performances of the choir and organ, for this the body was purchased in due time. I suggested not to tear with the basil so sharply, to leave at least the choir and organ. And so far they have been left-but such concerts are once every two months, and 60 organized organ concerts over the summer. Now they will remain 3-4 a year, the orchestra has been banned, it has already been decided that the choir should be transferred to the Tchaikovsky center, but when it will be! As Hamlet said - while the grass grows up, the horse will die. They just strangle us, and our conductor finally understood this. Only 70 tickets were sold to the last all -night vigil of Rachmaninov, and before it was always a full house! Because electronic sales were banned, only from its own site, and all outdoor advertising was also removed. This is money. In this case, the cathedral acted as a donor, he was allowed to exist with superprofits only because he was engaged in concert business. And now the rules of the game have changed, and they decided - and we do not need this. Mudrov tells us: we have Isaac - an Orthodox temple, and you do not fit into my idea of Orthodoxy. This music is not ours.
- Can't you continue these concerts yourself?
The museum will be reduced, it will turn into a tiny museum who can fit in the building of the former textile technical school
- Probably, we will do it - but without them. And this is only one of the steps to destroy the concert department. That concerts - and the entire museum will be reduced now, it will turn into a tiny museum who can fit into a large sea, in the building of a former textile technical school. Now they want to place everything that will be taken out of the former museum of four cathedrals: Sampsonievsky and Smolny have already been given, now they will give it to the blood and Isaac, and there will be only margins. And they will call this a museum of restoration - they will show how the Tsarskoye Selo, Pavlovsk and Peterhof were restored after the war, as if they are not known about it and did not talk about it. This is a stillborn idea. The cathedrals have more than 20 thousand exhibits, including huge mosaics of Bryullov and a leaflet with a sketch of Montferrand. Everything that is in the Isaac's Cathedral in large easels, stands belongs to the Russian cultural fund, plus different documents, and all this will be issued. But it is necessary that the building on Bolshaya Morskaya could accept all this - and there the horse does not lie, and there is not even a project. In the meantime, they slowly destroy the related activity that today's museum is not needed. This director is little versed in and is afraid of everything, this is not Burov with his broad views, this is not his predecessor Nagorsky, who could communicate with the priests, with the metropolitans - he was a diplomat, knew several languages and was in its place. And the model, when the churches are given the holidays, and the rest of the time - the museum, came up with the first director, boutiques. So with the king it was - only seven services a year, and now we have every day of service. They are cunning, they say that tourists also harm exhibits, bringing wet air from the street. But the air is one thing, and another thing - when they will constantly burn the candles and Bryullov at the top will be smoked. And he will turn into the same thing that Rublev turned into in the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. And the priests say nothing, it became more holy. In general, they are now a little overestimating their capabilities. When the ideologist of the current Metropolitan Barsonuphius, someone Pelin, came to Sampsonievsky Cathedral and they told him that in this temple and in the Isaac's Cathedral there are historical things, whose beauty needs to be preserved, it is short -lived, he said in response to an amazing phrase: now we will tell you that it is beautiful and what is not. That is, again - it will smoke, it will be good, the smaller, the more holy.
The former employee of the State Museum-Reserve "Isaac's Cathedral" Irad Vydenko worked for many years with the former director Nikolai Burov, after his dismissal she was appointed to the post of director, where she lasted only three days.
Everything turned into a struggle of enough elderly people for their existence
- I was lucky enough to work with a wonderful person, we did a lot of things necessary for the city - and the exhibition of icon painters, and much more, which, it seems to me, is related to spirituality. It was she who united both believers and museum workers in the museum. And now everything has turned into a struggle of enough elderly people for their existence.
- Under the previous leadership, was this wrong?
- I can’t say anything bad about Nikolai Vitalievich Burov, whom I have known about 12 years and I consider him a wonderful person and a very talented director. And now he continues his activities as the head of the museum - he creates the Russian Railways Museum. When I worked with him, I was his deputy for public relations. For example, we returned to the Cathedral of the sketches of Johann Dorner - this is one of the painters who painted the Isaac's Cathedral with Bryullov. We found partners, went to Bremen, and the Germans handed us these sketches as a gift. I think this is a big thing. And the reconstruction of the bell was also a big thing - we turned to Yakunin, who gave us money for the bell tower. Nikolai Burov did not use the St. Isaac's Cathedral, he did a lot for him. It was under him that the cathedral became the museum of the year on the museum Olympus, and the exhibition of the Greek icon painter Manolis Betinakis, which was prepared by our department, was nominated for the "Exhibition of the Year" award. And then a lot of young employees worked for us, now they are all fired. As for the current leadership of the museum, I do not hide the fact that I do not respect these people, I consider them to be adaptants. There are people who may not like it, but you respect them for their affairs, for the result. And there are people who do nothing, but they know how to adapt-to the situation, to some object, to the institute-and use it.
He knows about the reductions of the museum state and the civil activist Fedor Gorozhanko , the coordinator of the "Isaaki - to the city". He believes that the defenders of the cathedral should tirelessly explain to people what is happening in the museum, which, when transferring the Council of the Church, may not die, then reduce their work to a minimum.
There is an unspoken installation - now this scandal is to hush up and during this time prepare the entire legal side, all documents for the transfer of the Council of the Church
- For me, the problem of the cathedral is connected from the very beginning with the fact that the governor stated so peremptorily that the cathedral will be transferred to the church - without any discussion, and it turned out that very many also disagree with this. Some were outraged by the fact that the Church increases forces, takes state property, climbs into the affairs of the state, others - that all this is done without observing the procedures and without discussion with the public, interested in revenues to the city budget and, in many respects, says Gorozhanko. -When the new director of the cathedral Yuri Mudrov was appointed, everyone expected that he would clearly indicate his position, begin some negotiations. But he left this conflict in limbo - it seems that we do not transfer the cathedral, but it seems to be transmitted. At the same time, everyone understands that there is such an unspoken installation - now this scandal is to hush up and during this time prepare the entire legal side, all documents for the transfer of the Council of the Church. When they removed the former director, who firmly declared that he would not transfer the cathedral, it was clear to me that a person would be selected in his place without principles, who would simply work out the transfer of the museum - which he was doing now. Therefore, every week we spend pickets near the cathedral to force its leadership to identify our position. And not so that everything has already been decided again, but to discuss this with people, with the museum community, with experts.
According to Gorozhanko, if the decision is made after such a comprehensive discussion, then people will agree with it, if not, the conflict will flare up again. The activist resembles the story with a referendum about the fate of the Isaac's Cathedral, which the initiators could not hold, stumbled upon the resistance of most city deputies, who even refused to discuss this issue. The referendum would allow you to find out the most important thing - the opinion of the townspeople. Gorozhanko is almost sure that the museum has an unspoken roadmap on the radical reduction in the state, transferring museum funds to other legal entities and the gradual preparation of the cathedral to transfer the Russian Orthodox Church. Вторая попытка передать Исаакиевский собор Церкви будет сделана уже после президентских выборов, считает активист.