Evening for Corporative Friends of the Hermitage at Staraya Derevnya

On 4 December 2017, during the Hermitage Days, the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre was the venue for a traditional event – an evening for corporate members of the Hermitage Friends' Club.

The guests were accorded a unique opportunity to visit the new Costume Gallery open-storage facility before its official inauguration, and also to view items donated to the Hermitage for the future Costume and Fashion Centre.

The evening continued in the storage area for state coaches and carriages with expressions of gratitude from the General Director of the State Hermitage, Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, to the museum’s sponsors and patrons. “Our Friends are the finest representatives of business in this country and we greatly appreciate their support, especially for restoration projects,” he said in his speech. Viacheslav Anatolyevich Feodorov, the head of the Department of the History of Russian Culture, spoke about the unique new storage facility for costume at Staraya Derevnya, stressing that “no-one in the world has yet done anything similar on such a scale and in such a context.”

The official part of the event ended with a ceremony at which sponsors and patrons of the Hermitage were awarded honorary diplomas for achievements in 2017.

This was followed by the traditional festive reception organized with the support of members of the Hermitage Friends' Club..

Cocktails were served to the accompaniment of live music from the Music of the Neva string quartet.