Signing of a letter of intent between the State Hermitage and Gazprom EP International
On 23 October 2019, the Council Hall was the setting for the signing of a letter of intent between the State Hermitage and Gazprom EP International. The agreement was signed by Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, and Andrey Stepanovich Fick, Managing Director of Gazprom EP International.
“Today we are signing a letter about our future work together to promote culture around the world. It envisages long-term and, I am certain, productive collaboration. I am grateful to my colleagues for the initiative, and for the prospects and opportunities that we already have and that we will have,” Mikhail Piotrovsky said, opening the ceremony.
“I am happy that all of this is becoming a reality, that today we are beginning our serious collaboration,” Andrey Fick continued. “I am very pleased that we have the opportunity to put forward those ideas that we have had for many years and to jointly make them a reality.”
The letter of intent defines the main aspects of a programme of collaboration in the sphere of the preservation of cultural heritage and the development of the State Hermitage. Gazprom EP International will provide the museum with assistance in accomplishing its exhibition and restoration activities, support in the sphere of research and educational programmes, and also participate in the promotion of Hermitage projects abroad through the organization of public events and social occasions, lectures and master classes. The agreement is in operation until 31 December 2021.
Gazprom EP International is a specialist company within the Gazprom group engaged in the implementation of projects to find, explore and develop deposits of hydrocarbons outside of the Russian Federation. At the present time, the company is involved in the implementation of some 40 projects in 17 countries across three continents. One of the key countries for the implementation of energy projects in the Asia-Pacific region is the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The State Hermitage, with the support of Gazprom EP International, is organizing an exhibition “The Sounds of a Beautiful Past. Russian Porcelain in the Hermitage” to be held in the Vietnam National Museum of History in Hanoi. Information about the exhibition project, which is to be one of the central events of the Cross-Cultural Year of Russia and Vietnam in 2019, was provided by its curator and coordinator, Irina Radikovna Bagdasarova, senior researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of the History of Russian Culture. In the year of its 255th anniversary, the Hermitage will be presenting for the first time in Vietnam a variety of historical items from the collection of Russian porcelain. Visitors to the exhibition will be able see splendid examples of imperial, Soviet and present-day porcelain. It will represent an attempt to re-assess the milestones that mark porcelain production in Russia. Presenting porcelain in all its diversity of shapes and décor, devoting particular attention to the properties of this unique material, the curators are employing original approaches to the display of the masterpieces. Among other things, they draw parallels between the flowing shapes and dance movements, between thematic painted decoration and theatrical scenes, between rhythmical ornamentation and musical motifs. The elements of dance, sound and pictures come together to form a single artistic image that finds its reflection in the porcelain masterpieces and brings them to life. The exhibition is to be accompanied by an extensive education programme, including lectures on Russian art and culture and a competition for a design to be painted on porcelain.
