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museums are important for preserving our history so that it isn't lost to future generations. but our physical museum spaces themselves a relic of the past. this is one of the best museums in the world or kind of touch and st. petersburg, we help ruskie is the director here and i bet he has some answers. lou. lou history is always a energy that resides in the physical space. the energy that resides in paintings that energy cannot be fully conveyed through technology restoration and what assumptions begins. do you think i can try my hand today? i'm very, very strict supervisor at the hematologist or a 2 types of question that are forbidden comply. i where my scarf all the time and what's my favorite painting?

professor pitts ruskie. nice to you. thank you very much. for hosting us here. ah, basically, ah, this is the hermitage, you've been the director here for 30 years. the world has changed a lot in this time. or what is the hermitage, or how has the hermitage changed along with it? or what we've seen him right now, we're in the winter palace. it's part of the hermitage and a monument to russian statehood, but also a world famous art museum. i do hope the hermitage hasn't changed much in 30 years, but our job is to preserve this wonderful 19th century museum and make sure it continues to tell stories. it takes a lot of work to keep it from changing. that's why we've launched the greater hermitage, project it, an entire complex of facilities, including the new buildings on palace square. as a result, we've doubled our exhibition space where we've also opened

a storage facility at hermitage, stereo, that is near. that's old village. finally, we've established a number of satellite museums here, amazon. previously, we had home at our satellites, and russia and all around the world was even for now, only the russian branches are active with us. while the hermitage is a modern high tech museum with a global presence, the worst, i believe it still manages to preserve the spirit of the 19th century. so history, it changes, people can manipulate history if you will, based on their own agendas, or how do you keep a history from being changed so that you can so that it is non biased and so that it is as impartial. no, it's florida. can anybody history is always biased home was a, what a museum does is give people an opportunity to make their own interpretations based on authentic pieces of history and all the items here are authentic with us. we

don't offer interpretations of oregon. every person learns different things. from different sources, what makes our museum great is that while we have our own viewpoint wouldn't be let everyone tell their story the way they wanted to tell it. and she said me give you an example. we're about to enter the gallery dedicated to the patriotic war. of 1812. there are paintings there which depict the battle about a dinner for russians. this was a great victory of the russian empire, but to the french, it was a great french victory. history is always biased. that way. we've also got paintings of the battle of betters enough. they tell the story of napoleon fleeing russia for doing this. it would appear to show another great victory for russia, wouldn't it? that we also know that the commander of the russian army at arizona was not included in this series of portraits because he led napoleon the old guard get away from. so this shows that history can be interpreted in different ways, which can sometimes contradict each other. so i know that

a lot of museums have technology, advanced technologies like 3 d exhibits, vdr and they use augmented reality. maybe i how is the hermitage adapting to this? do you have exhibits that use new technology, loses stock or to put in to pick when now in the process of creating what we call the celestial hematologist? as much of what we do involves cloud technology for me to call this is especially relevant today as russia finds itself in an intellectual and cultural blockade. justin mcgill, m a. so everything we do ends up in the cloud. now you don't have to physically come to the hermitage to discover its treasures. it's a all of our exhibitions are uploaded to this virtual hermitage and we do exclusive digital exhibitions as well. so we have a series of items that we exhibit in virtual reality and put on display physically and other museums as part of hermitage days. augmented reality and virtual reality have been a huge success. you can put on a special headset and float all the way to the ceiling. take

a better look at the statue of use and so on. let, importantly, all these cutting edge technologies in the hermitage must be subordinate to the 19th century aesthetic culture and history. technology comes and goes in waves, there are technological shifts every 5 years or so. we can no longer use disc made 5 years ago, let alone those from a decade ago. some basic things must be preserved. but regardless of the change in technology, all the more so because modern digital technology takes away from the article, it's not something that everyone understands, but a digital picture is often worse than its analog counterpart. the same way a vinyl record is better than a digital record. stepping into a room like this, this hallway is just magnificent. you can feel the history here. or is it safe to say that there will always be a place in the world for physical museum spaces? upset of effect visits long? absolutely. we physical museums will always be around. you can talk all you want

about cutting edge technology or what the energy that resides in the physical space . the energy that resides in paintings that energy cannot be fully conveyed through technology, social work. yes, technology is useful, but that's it. here we have some portraits of men who fought in the war against napoleon or this is the duke of wellington, but he served as a russian field marshal. so he's up there that these are wonderful portraits over there with equipment that provides detailed information about every work of art. good morning, this is one of the ways technology can help us rob, but it still comes down to people. well, you are many poems written about the people you see here, and they certainly exude the kind of energy that helps you immerse yourself in the history. likewise, these photographs here help you understand what it was like in the years of the great patriotic war during the siege of leningrad when the world. no portraits on display here, only empty frames or theatre of nibble, even without the portraits. this place still had a way to speak to people that of as well. so, let's say

a new piece becomes available and information are, comes with a new day guard, or a new renoir is discovered. what is the process? how does the museum go about acquiring that piece and can you talk me through? how do you find out about it and how do you get it here to the hermitage? no, apparently. firstly, we don't buy things like a new day guard because we already have many of his works. secondly, we don't always have the funds to make such grand purchases. but when we do come across something that catches our interest, you look at that there is a special committee that looks at the item. so provides us a detailed description and delivers an opinion on whether or not we should buy it. then with the committee, we have a discussion to answer to key question senior, do we really need it? and what can we afford it? or if we can, we start raising the money while others can feel. i can think of one famous painting, salvador monday by leonardo da vinci, got it, and these people went around trying to sell it to everyone,

what they brought it to us as well. it's not the original of course, but once we looked at the painting, we knew right away. it wasn't what we needed to ship with us. we had better paintings by davinci, his watcher, and we also have better paintings from the same school of painting. in fact, we even have a better salvatore. monday painting by titian. occasionally there is a piece we really need to buy the chicago, in which case we get all worked up, reach out to the sponsors and the patrons and get them to buy the piece for us. that will typically the item is not some over hyped painting. but a specific work of art that the hermitage would benefit from love, none in the number of without you mentioned, what does the hermitage need or what does the hermitage that you really, really want tell me as the director here, what would you really, really like to add to the hermitage collection. honestly, i can't name any things i do want to. you simply can't buy it. we could use of a mirror, i guess with a mirror. it's really difficult to get

a decent vermeer not once. there was this for me, a painting on the market. and they said, surely some russian tycoon will buy it and donated to the hermitage. when there was no tycoon with the painting. wasn't that good either, that you just can't get your hands on quality art in the when it comes to 20th century contemporary art, we have all the essentials. we've got dance and music by mattie's. we've got marya, which is black square, a gift by the way. and we've got the red wagon by tobacco for also a donation. we have some wonderful paintings by and some kiefer so i'd say we have the 20th century covered as for the 21st century. but there aren't any artist yet that we could use are kind of related question, but a little more personal. what is your favorite piece or maybe something that is closest to your heart here in the touch of the bridge. now that's a taboo question. her at the hermitage, there are 2 types of question that are forbidden for why i wear my scarf all the time. and what's my favorite painting? if i reveal my favorite painting,

people will keep giving me reproductions of it all the time. the director of the hermitage has a right to a private life. i have a book called director's choice. i understand it lists all the pieces i've personally chosen and those aren't my personal favorites. are you just the ones i suggest? everyone should see to better understand what the hermitage has to offer to the school. now we know that her hermitage has large vaults, a huge collection, and i museums like the loop in the smithsonian the united states. they have about 7 percent, only 7 percent of their collection on display for the public. ah, how much do you have available to the public percentage was i should think that's not the right way to look at it. your 1st museum is not a gallery because it exists to show only a small part of their collection. it every museum insists of collections of one. if you don't have collections, you're not considered a museum with people in charge of these collections study, restore,

and preserve exhibits. some of these exhibits are shown to the public in museums, and that's where your figure comes from. it's usually 10 percent in larger museums . in smaller museums, the figure tends to be higher. and then this doesn't apply to the hotel shatoya. over many years, we have built a large complex of open storage facilities called and thought matters thought i had the revenue. that's old village in chicago, all of our exhibits are on display. they're not like in here where we've got a couple of paintings on each wall over there. we've got hundreds and hundreds of them. people go and explore the storage facilities just like they go to restoration studios to see what our specialists do with the works of art overall, which was we went to the stories that have now restoration and storage center for ourselves to see where age warn masterpieces get a new life larry, what you're doing is incredibly interesting. thank you for taking the time to speak

with us. i. i've been looking around, i see in your tool kit, you have cotton swabs. you have scalpels, it seems more like a surgeons toolkit. are you an artist or are you more like a, a doctor, a surgeon? love apparel, lester. when the, whoops you him is that you are right. there are lots of similarities between medicine, then restoration, young that we have similar instruments and do intricate work that requires focus. we care for paintings like doctors, my medical professionals, treat people we treat canvasses. the ideal situation is when there is a balance between artistic and surgical work, i mean you must have both rich and book. sometimes you have to perform complex technical things that don't require artistic skills, but then you get to colors and cleaning. in order to do that, you have to know and understand a lot about art. like in medicine,

good doctors study for decades. restoration requires that to and we have various schools that teach the trade from the basics to the top level. it could take decades to become a qualified specialist in this field. we have uniform than him from practical shooter videos manual. so a time can do very bad things are to paintings to all of us actually. um, is it possible to restore any type of painting based on any type to damage the shipping from it? is any of a yes, there are various degrees of damage, but sometimes it's very minor and doesn't require that much work. and other times we get a severely damaged painting with when to continue with the medicine analogy. extensive surgery or treatment is required at the hermitage. we have exhibits that have had a troubled history. they've survived the wars and all sorts. the painting on restoring the right now is by yon previously a belgian artist who lived and worked at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.

there is an amazing story behind this painting that was trapped inside a wall for a long time. in these 16 fifties, there were an iconic campaigns and many artworks were destroyed. this painting was hidden behind the church wall in bruges from it remained for 4230 years and was discovered by accident of the from the french destroyed the cathedral were for that sort of financial jenna will have not gotten ah, what is the if i may ask the most, a damaged painting that you personally ever had to restore this painting as an example of how some artwork has been badly treated. it is also by young provost, and initially it was the same size as this one. the painting was intended for an altar, so it was over 2 meters now, only a fragment remains young, which was cut out of the large canvas. it was painted over to fit into the new format. this golden background was just covered and black paint. i don't understand

the artistic value of that decision, which i guess they were guided by some popular trends of the time. but this is an example of the terrible damage that could be done to a painting when it's cut into pieces here, washed out in a load of painted over. when is a changed drastically in accordance with the trends, if it or anything like that up for our goal is to restore the original appearance intended by the author against the art history is based on original works, the colors and palate in order to avoid false attribution or other misconceptions we need to uncover the truth and that is what we try to do. if possible, we remove all other layers and uncover the original painting of presenting it to the viewer and the way it was 1st created, kazama. never larry, i've been watching you work. um i think i'm ready. are you ready to give me a try? i want to help me the you have. i think you will have this opportunity after you

study the trade for 10 years or so. we know of situations when people without any special training, try to do this work and end up ruining everything, so i wouldn't recommend it. so not today. andre, thank you very much for meeting with us today. ah, the work you do is very important, in my opinion, you're incredibly brave to take your hands and put them to history like this. talk to me about the process when a painting comes in until when it goes out. how do you do your work better? which is 1st we evaluate the condition of the paintings in the extent of the damage and develop a restoration plan. after we make sure that the painting has been sufficiently consolidated and it won't crumble, we figured out if we need to use varnish or reconstruct. last fragments, this step differs from case the case. not all paintings require clearance, works or further restoration. so consolidation is the most important step, is it okay to begin?

one thing that impresses me is the use of color. sometimes colors can be found that like they were originally, um, what do you do? do you just take a new paint a new color and put it in their cars, a trained eye? you would notice, but i wouldn't notice the difference between the blue that i find in the store today and the blue that was used originally on your slide. some colors are impossible to replicate, even though we have equivalence for some like us, synthetic, alter marine for mad a lake and other natural red pigments that were made from bugs and snails. nobody's replicating those processes today. we replaced them with advanced synthetic materials in the same time. the key is to have a good grasp of the artist, technique, and methods, the pigments that were used, and that helps you find the correct approach, the restoration by imitating the artist as closely as possible. now, we spoke a little bit about this off camera, but you have to go down to the original layer to make sure that you restore

painting down to its original glory if you will. there have been famous examples of people who think that they're doing the right thing and think that they're doing a good job and have jones done tremendous damage to the work. um, how do you prevent that and does it break your heart when you see those sorts of things online? through the floor like unusual, of course, sometimes amateur can service spoiled, paintings that often comes to light as the damage is usually obvious. actually, the rule is very simple here, focus on the loss and don't try to become a co author. a fine aren't, can. server is the can service 1st and foremost from what we must suppress our creative urge them. we only restore what's lost and respect the art on our work table, who, who interference should be reduced to a minimum. our golden rule only do what's necessary. what's the best path to our goal is the path of least impact without. it was also a great quote from says are a brand name, restoration ends where the assumption begins, not everybody works by these words. it,

some are so self confident. they say they know what they're doing and they're doing it right. yes. but in fact, which happens as a 100 percent confident, as profession is not for them, you should always have a grain of doubt, level of success. with that, having been said, i'm a little bit of an artist myself. i. i have the uniform, were dressed the same way. do you think i can try my hand today and we can start, i can work together with you. ah, very various things supervisor, thank you again for taking the time. thank you. now we've spoken with the a restoration artists. ah, they have a very important job in incredibly tense job. what happens if you get a piece that is to damaged it, to be restored, and you keep it in the vaults, or do you keep it for historical reasons or if the cause of their us and assure the decision is made by an expert commission on

a case by case basis over the course of each item has. there's an old conservation rule in the venice charter article that says we shouldn't rebuild what's gone with wishes and in part mirror in syria where we're involved in the restoration process . we often hear that it stop it, it's destroyed. so let it be like though we're not crazy. vandal spilled acid over rembrandts. danny, though to some parts of it, were lost forever. well, in the winter, some suggested we shouldn't do anything which was let it be a monument to vandalism, hadn't she was so, but in fact, it's important to restore it. i found it to the extent of what's possible, what because it's not about painting a new. we've conserved what we could. no, some parts are damaged beyond repair, but still norbish jenny is a masterpiece. even though its appearance has changed every time we have to make this decision, one thing is certain. we mustn't add anything, goes beyond our intrusion must be reversible. then for example, when we add vanish over a big hole, we had toner. so the whole doesn't interfere with our perception that was left.

this kind of interference must be reversible. that layer should be removable. hello, vehicle fear in the hermitage. our approach to restoration is very conservative. if we never aim to restore a painting to a fresh condition, that would be wrong. value thought of the artist, knew the painting would date and what it would look like in 20 years. that's our take on the issue. it's really quite a conservative one, but we try to restore paintings to let our visitors enjoy them. if the piece is destroyed completely, however, we have to wait. we had some of peter, the grades outfits as well. we have a lot of them in our collection and their exhibition is coming soon. just some of them were considered damaged beyond repair parish, but new technology rolled in and now they're restored. or even though we didn't add anything to them, just revived and reshaped the damaged butts within a studio. ah, you have said that art and exhibitions are in important cultural dialogue.

now that i'm dialogue between countries and has become complicated, let's say, do you think that art can serve as a moderator to help him get people talking again, get countries talking again. loyal to us. look at the sterling national. in my opinion, international dialogue will resume through museums and exhibitions. we've been here before during the cold war, you know, most of the dialogue between museums precedes the re, establishment of diplomatic relationships that, that got the opposite is also true. museum exchange between russia and the united states discontinued 15 years ago. it was the 1st signal that nobody knew back then that it was to harold, a new page in our relations. his throat is still dialog continues. we have telecommunications that let us share treasures across our borders. adults, many other exhibition venues also exist. so the interactions won't stop completely so, and we always try to negotiate any obstacles we encounter this. there were a lot of them in the past. the home at ashes, history spanned 3 revolutions,

3 was evacuations, exchanges, and everything in between help with that, we've been there. we know what to do with what we know our way around, di colonization as well. yes, we have vast experience and by keeping up our work that also we explore opportunities to build new bridges with our colleagues was on the foundations of burnt once. and if my, if it was now, museums are kind of like a living organism. they breathe, they need oxygen, and you need freedom. you need a movement so that people in different countries can see your exhibitions and breathe life into the hermitage. what destinations would you like to take? the love of this place to next? look, good killer scholars. as i said before, it's cloud technology were you even on youtube? virtual tools have so many views. you couldn't even dream of that number of in person visits, as we've learned during the pandemic. and that's great. but even last,

we still have partners that remain accessible to us. like in the gulf states are twin, museum, the law of abu dhabi, for example, if you can't go to the loop these days, but in abu dhabi, the doors are open on this. we have collaboration projects in china, malaysia, and southeast asia for people who miss out on the opportunity to visit russia. with that we love it much more when people come here or visit our online exhibitions. we are reluctant to transport our pieces elsewhere, just perilous, too dangerous to take our collections to other countries, exhibiting them here or on the internet is much safer around it so that it will go professor, thank you very much. it has been an incredibly interesting conversation and a fascinating place, of course. thank you. my pleasure. thank you. ah, ah

good never got a trigger. the general has came close. that means national government can come into the economy much as a nickel. settle because a financial 22 in the years we didn't come back on the north and yet it to us own to that along the law moves them us and he died in the mean at your mass city sick at sickle miyoshi stana any started on monday the financial did return to this visit. formerly i need to turn this to this and that, i mean that it resets your own home phone, go out shamefully from lam. i'm not sure who to lee. she thought i'll likely to get very loud to stop all of the law without privacy as soon as she resumed this will be to school and i want your full view. my chima,

a boston model shall receive my not discovery. went up with dawn last last you know ah, in the year of 1954, the united states of america engaged in warfare against the people of vietnam. the white house supported the corrupt bobbitt government of southern vietnam. in 1965 americans began their invasion following the aim to defeat the forces of vietnamese patriots. the pentagon was confident that the victory would be on the american side, due to its military superiority. however, the vietnamese turned this war into a total hell for the occupants. unable to cope with guerrillas,

the american army started blanket coming alongside using chemical weapons and napalm which burnt all alive. the village of my lay, where in 1969 american soldiers killed 504 civilians, including 210 children, became a tragic symbol of this war. all in all, during the whole period of this conflict, the usa dropped on vietnam more than $6000000.00 tons of bombs, which is 2 and a half times as much as on germany during the 2nd world war. in 1973, the american army under the pressure of the rebels, withdrew from vietnam. and only 2 years later did the puppet regime in saigon fall . however, the vietnamese paid a high price for their freedom. more than 1000000 vietnamese people became the victims of american aggressors. as us on the west, ukraine,

proxy war on russia is not going as planned. a new narrative is making the rounds. it's called the korea solution, the end of active hostilities and an armistice. keep in mind the side considering an armistice, seeks to avoid complete defeat. we all know which side that is at this hour. american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq, to free people, and to defend the world from great danger. we will bring to the food and medicine and supplies

with with images. and that headlines here on our to international that's russia has slammed international organizations and the west for that silent. so the electrical war crimes. as more footage emerges on line, showing the execution of russian soldiers fly ukrainian trip to killed, including a 6 year old child as a cob plows into a bus station in jerusalem. israeli police are treating it as a terror attack. india has discovered a record amount of lithium deposits, ultimately giving hope to a boosting that of the electrical vehicle industry in the country. and un