good to have you back with us here on our let's take a recap of the headlines the u.n. walland against taking sides in the syrian conflict say the rebels and the regime must share the blame for the bloodshed as western powers like gain accused of turning a blind eye to rebel atrocities. the greek prime minister feels the heat as he reads one of his chief of the monsters on news that dead and specter is not bad nearly a half of greece's cuts planned. kaos over the cost of living riots in the west bank palestinian leaders desperate for calm while an anxious israel watch as

well signs of another uprising against the occupation. and. a lot of american classrooms are early in the school year style strike over pay and conditions that as more american parents opt to teach their children at home. now explore one of the largest and oldest museums in the world rushes hematology in st petersburg and talk to his director who's a special guest in today's spotlight. good leverage taurine to mccurry was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which on fortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tim's mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans in the world this is why you should care only on the.

wealthy british scientists are. not on life time. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser reports. hello again and welcome to spotlight the show. and all the novel and today my guest in the studio is. russia's best known museum the hermit that is in st petersburg

as soon turning to hundred fifty for what was just a private royal art gallery there because now it became one of the world's largest and most food no music and is more than three million pieces of art form all over the world but only a tiny fraction is on display so when the birthday party begins what are we going to see is it going to be something new something very special we're asking the museum's director. it was two hundred fifty years ago the russian empress catherine the great purchased paintings from a german national that was how the hammock just story began the museum's priceless collection includes artworks by rembrandt vinci care about you and many many others every year they attract tens of thousands of visitors from all corners of the globe and oriented just for you know cross has been charge of the case for almost twenty years he's keeping up

a family tradition as his father was in charge of the museum for twenty three years before. mr petrofsky thank you very much for being with us so it's a pleasure well first of all. we're only talking about that on the tax collection we're talking about one of the biggest collections of art. pieces in the world is it still expanding and what are the new new exhibits in your collection well we certainly have to expand their image you have to access something so just recently we have what we've managed to find some money quite a lot of money out of the ocean silver service. it in century french would belong to russian ability and it belongs to the lady countess which is mentioned by pushkin they have spades and so it's good that we knew all this with the names and the people who were quoting of the ocean did know this so

the price was a normal one not a rocket one so. do you continue to buy and is that the main reason for the reconstruction that that that the museum is undergoing now because there is the expense knows we buy a lot not what we buy something what is it the things don't need expansion but and extension but we have to excess it's not extension it's a project which is different from usual extension because real extension one building after another after another it's a big problem because first of all you don't have then you don't have money to keep it all and then really even a very big museum doesn't have enough art on the same level similar so our system is different we have a dynamic system which is called greater. which has the main new clues of many galleries which we do expand then we have the city of the public square i

think around and then of everything which we're very proud of the open story we have build one building six stores another one is finished in the third one now will the great army terrace sounds to me like a greater london leggings their clothes would love them this is not exactly like this is a greater likelihood of the same idea of the city maybe the city and the suburb and the segment what it includes the sill the storage and were very proud of this storage where you can see all the collections and mass and people do visit it and so on and the next line or the greater middle centers abroad have the final thing is the internet google or the you know the model is the i.b.m. part and there is also google. well let's take a look at there has to be out there in a thousand museum in a report by supposed lies to me that. one of the largest and oldest museums in the world was billed as a private place for catherine the great where the russian empress could run to teen

her guests and it was not until almost a hundred years later that the royal collections were opened to the public the first two decades of soviet to lead to the museum losing some of his greatest masterpieces pressed for money the government tried to make up for who was in the budget by selling some of the country's art treasures rembrandt's palace athena was one of the pictures to raise cash it's made a return to the hermitage despite over to a buyer for in co action during the second world war a considerable part of the pictures were stuffed into two trains and transported to the u. rolls during the siege of leningrad some of the museum buildings were damaged despite all the trials and tribulations the museum has continued to grow it now possesses three million items to see all of them you'll have to walk twenty two kilometers and if you spend a minute looking at each item it will take you

a tease to see every piece of the hermitage collection. we've started talking about reconstruction and better already it's a very very huge facility i mean there i'm attached and as our reporter just mentioned but how will the reconstruction of your museum and of the adjacent palace square change the face of st petersburg well it will have our arrogance so we think that we are the center and we have the heart of the second to be we change it and we want we want that the central the syrians to live in the richness of museums and for those who have our main stage is your been it stick. this is this is this is a very risky risky place to live in the rhythm of a museum or. one of the i would like to live in the real problem here with a very important issue which we are discussing mostly all we have to develop the city you can't live in this is you have to this museum is the most dynamic think

our museum is one of the most dynamic in the world but in general visions of the most day many dynamic things in the world the only economy full of life full of different kinds of activities look at the metropolitan of the lore of british museum so so it's not a bad thing to live in the middle but do you might be better into the young people really would be. the museum is a dynamic institution they would see that at this scale corbis down a museum or something you know just last week we opened one of five musical festivals and this one is full of jazz and flamenco and so on in the course of all this is the palace and while young people a lot of different young people whatever the club for the students which is always fall and solve things of young people and students come and they started the contemporary art they do work they make some different kinds of performances so they do so they would buy their legs you know i would agree with you they're being dynamic and up to date because because i know that in famous dutch architect rem

koolhaas yes is is taking points in this reconstruction he's known for being very ever guard so south will his contribution be pretty radical is he going to radicalise this this traditional thing the heritage world around me is very radical but also he understands well what the tradition is so we have to present it was really something like a recipe for and i was working in today's russia we have a joint work which is called project for me to ask to solve and forgive that's exactly the one we're trying to treat as an aversive and there are different ideas which have been developed with rome one of the organised to go india we have to see the public square and we open different ways of getting into the palace square to the general staff building where the first floor will be the city for room opening the way. here in the smaller meter. so it's all.

of the people so the palace square becomes more and more involved in the retardant connected to the meters and we will arrange a different kind of events on the public square no there are concerts which. again you talking of the power school but as far as i know power square is under the protection of the unesco so so do you have to get approval by the unesco to touch something outside the building new first the whole city of some put as work is considered to be unesco by the pool must be given by the russian authorities on by unesco and that's why we don't use you use the word world would a reconstruction you say restore asian restaurants ration because if it must be approved in many many many times what we are doing and we are the most careful people in this thing so this restoration that you just mentioned it includes a new place which is the the roy of the rural guards museum could you specify what

kind of restraint is the going to be about the role guards museum. well first of all he's here is another place which is called the general stopped building the east new ingle the general style building where we have been doing big restore ation from the lawn of the world bank and we already have finished step by step the first stage of it so inside the because this will give you the idea what we're going to do because here is which are covered and inside there we have made this big stake case and if we have the place for the contemporary art for the impressionist was in the presence of the same idea for the for medium of the gods the headquarters of the royal guards is now with the military we are now discussing very strongly the possibility to open the museum of royal dance in the headquarters of discussing strongly with the military i could hardly i can. discuss things strongly with. you we go with the. this is. trouble from one big cabinet and other

government from. the administration and so on because we think that is extremely important guards to our biggest problem in russia in the military form and the spiritual level of russian army and we think that we can make a very good education not only for young people prefer the offices of the organs with mr overall guts twenty. two to two to get the military on your side are the other some over the years some of them so it's the fight is still going to start with think that's exactly the place where we must work together with them to educate to present our military history not only military history this sense of being military. of the pride of being military of the all the contacts of . military officers which is a little bit forgotten to be. true like to be pathetic.

and we have a very organized different kind of military sense even inside. the palace square we have the idea well you know restoration we're going to restore the church to the manger. and you know with a corner starts but our proposal is this church because it's inside the museum will be used only once for the church service says it skewed director of the hermitage museum in st petersburg spotlight will be back shortly after we take a small break so stay with us don't go. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images.

from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule today. dear mom i'm sorry that i had to do this i've been in so much pain in the past year that i can't take it anymore the stomach and chest pains have been getting worse and no doctor has been able to help me please know that i'll finally be at peace with no more pain i wish i could have had a life with it was a bit always pictured her being my wife and mother to my kids i love you all see you all in heaven when your time comes i'm going to meet jesus christ. thousands of u.s. troops in iraq received one of these drugs a drug called lariam and it may have prevented many soldiers from getting sick the question tonight is whether or not soldiers were adequately warned about its rare

side effects serious life change and side effects. walking back to sparta my time algor narbonne just a reminder that my guest on the show today is me hope aircraft the director of the hermitage museum in st petersburg mr petrecki you mentioned the the internet is being part of the greater heritage and i mentioned google well how did you react to the fact that google launched this so-called virtual tour of the hermitage which which includes high definition photos of our of the masterpieces because because this is sort of a copyright i mean i mean but what was your reaction to all the story first of all we do have virtual tours and army towns on the big side which was the best museum

site in the world now do the second after the law resigned agreement as a b. and so we're doing creating. a website google care with the idea of said ok we do have things but they said no we have definitions so let's try so we agreed and first of all we gave them the opportunity to show the realm of the prodigal son in very very high definition and this is there are no copyright for this we think because it's belongs to the whole world and then we made also the virtual to everything was good we announce that it is a killer and then suddenly we've seen that all google's virtual tools are sold all the addition to that. in russian's other places so we connect with google advocate active apple think well please stop it or they stop it immediately things begin to order it's this is copyright issues somebody begins always to sell pictures which you would you give to the whole well to the people it's a general issue of copyright musical internet fields and internet art and internet

but still we would consider for many years that it's extremely important to bring god to the people through internet and then they come to the museum it's another they think you you you've been direct to the state of it for years in yours. and i think it became pretty hard lately because because in the soviet times all you had to care about is as you said bringing art to people getting art closer to people but now there are many and now you shoot out a lot of those obstacles like the one with google that you're talking about so is it harder or easier to work in a market environment while you know i think it's the same really proud of the same because below along a lot of restrictions and no real relations with relations with all the world but they're restricted in sort now at least now still for ninety years i'm the director

for quite a lot of freedom in making own decisions deciding what we show how we should always when we work we do take money from who we ask for money from whom we refuse to take money and so on and so so market economy it is pluses and minuses but i think we can we are accustomed to living when you have the state. near you because definitely the most money comes from first. way sixteen billion rubles you got it you got allocated to go home because we did with the money come from from all came from the government well it's not not here to get it it's what we ask when i showed this booklet to the prime ministers on what we are going to do this of that is it or good looks wonderful did you count on much my nobody. cares what you like to say there like if you like it out there. for this we have all the money from the world bank of the minister of finance till the heart and fourteen police we have promise in the state budget if you are into the promise will be fulfilled it is ok for will

to really we need only money for the third stage of the storage facilities because we have done two of them and for second we'd also have money so we have part of the money we can earn part of the money will find some of the money so with this this was always what we always do is sure we can get this is a little give us something that a state museum says so so what you get from the state ok to the nation what you get from the world bank is it a donation or is it a loan or what one of you know a majority of the situation would change a lot in the world the first time the world bank gave along to a country which was not connected was very economic restrictions well so you use it you know money and so on the first term they gave. loans for grants and then long story construction restore edition of the city historical city of simple as well so three dimensional as much as the world being gives the russian government gives now with the changes of the chorus or rates much of most of the money comes from the state of from the store finance but it's all together it's you bring people

together it works ok f. about the money i have to i have to learn some. things that really interest me in one of your recent interviews you said that you are going to restore some old tradition of. winter palace somehow the are something that was held on the twenty fifth of december can you specify what we're talking about well first of all we are talking about how we use we are going to restore the main church certainly now you know the big debate is in russia how to use the churches rational of a church with everything back and something loose this was. you can't have services with the candles of a rethink in the museum so a proposal is that it will be used also as religious ceremonies once a year twenty first of december it's a very famous russian day it's a day of getting enemy out of national territory when the napoleon's forces have

been home forced out so it was an eighteen to a special event it well so the special day ended this day usually there was a special service in the church and a small parade military parade inside the winter palace inside the can so the winter palace i mean indoors indoors yes indoors and we do it from time to time you can certainly bring well not a whole regiment but who will so we do it even now we know how to do it so we think it will be a kind of a ceremony also maybe with. that here also one of the palace square because the pillar square is perfectly suitable for military parades it's a memorial to the war or any other question there are legends about the helmet cats that live there and there and that keep it safe from the rats that may spoil the collection and people say that those cats they descended from the cats that were kept by catherine the great here's a true world of them here there is an orgasm in the sea this is not right over here

and join us forming on our microphone exactly. who never ever every day every day some journalists from all over the world to your market well the two stories one story is that in some of elizabeth's even before they brought from cousin which would be good for catching crabs so and well from this it was on on and on and on from turn then i was telling some guy that you know then you have the siege of leningrad and all the cats died was killed which is not true because people even kept some of the cats during the siege of the starving of ground and then. in the time of perestroika when we had some cats and then people begin to bring cats from their homes to meet ours because while the situation was difficult economic were difficult so we made of exercise in humility let's show the people that we care for cats also and so we decided to take care of them and we collect money to feed

them and now the important feature also of education education of children and adults also. another question of the power school is often used as a stage for big concerts or rock concerts for political meetings and all that. you are strongly opposed to do you think there that the reconstructed rebuilt palace square that that these sort of things should be banned yes exactly it's one of the hidden purposes of what we're doing. well if you want to make it unsuitable for your listeners because when you have a good programme of what is happening there so nobody can get into this with some foolish ideas or some no the things also we have met once in your studio discussing this from the day we manage to put things into a certain limits everybody who wants to make a concert comes to me and we decide what will the program be what level of noise we measure the noise and so on and in

a way it's still weird to have sometimes terrible concerts but much lower than before and well if you the minute if you want to do something called a polar square you want a very short time quick read something and take it when you have the most motorcycles you can come for half an hour and then from there you'll start and go on with. this model as another kind of model started there's a thing in russia that's called the knights of museums it's a very nice thing it's a very good new tradition but it's but it's nice i mean to have it i learned there during this night of museums. are not allowed into the main building are going to ask why. yes because we open the things we want people to come where they don't are we open our storage we open the mention of this year we open the beginnings of vision from paintings from prada which was an enemy to our super but we'll see it in the evening when the main building because you know where there are going to think if you open your meter at night people everybody will come to a meeting and the idea of the knights of museum is to bring people to the museums

which usually don't visit and also we organize things on special dates for us is when we celebrate a three hundred one of us or some put as a book or meters are open twenty four hours free and we had saddam saddam's sons of saddam people inside the museum we know about what's really last time we talked you told me about two meters is being very very theft proof well when was the last attempt to steal something from the habitat and what was that when it was something actually stolen well you know it is like with the turkeys munir if you. if these are prevented nobody knows. no they're lost it was a terrible big theft in. two thousand and six which is an inside have to use usually is and saw all the proofs are well if somebody from your stuff stolen and somebody selling them from outside it's very complicated to think it but after this

we still improved and improve things so that's where a little bit of a police state you know we have cameras in all the holes but also in the storage is of the corridors and so on and so on which everybody including the stuff but museum is also all who's a risk always a risk because with the open something world things must be accessible so you know we've seen fit. to the demands a lot of money and a lot of people being in work a thank you thank you very much for coming and please keep up the good work thank you and just to remind you that i guess probably shared today was we how you look at prof's director of the heavy casualties you haven't failed you. and that's it for now from all of us here if you want to have yours sounds part like we're up someone in monterey you think i should interview next time to drop me a line at our good old bad party t.v. dads are you and let's keep spotlight interactive who will be back to the moon first i'm confident that i was going to end and outside russia until then stay on

r.t. and take care. as.