Kalnitskaya Peterhof Biography

Ivan Vladimirov Elena Yakovlevna Kalnitskaya, who left us on January 2 in a year of life, was an outstanding museum worker. Over the 13 years of its directorship in the Peterhof Museum-Reserve, 15 new museums were created now 32 of them, park ensembles and palaces were restored ... And a couple of years before the Pandemia, in the year, Peterhof became the most visited by the Russian Museum, taking 5.7 million visitors.

In an interview with RG in the old year, when Elena Yakovlevna received the Museum Olympus Award, Valery Vytovitovich was interested in the secrets of her ascent to this very Olympus. Her answer was impressive: “In another field of activity, you can become a professional in two or three years, in ours - no. The museum leader must grow in the museum, go all the way from the first steps to a serious professional formation.

Now I am a director. But I know how a museum engineer thinks, what a museum keeper thinks, as a scientist sees the problem, which is concerned about the head of the middle level because in all these posts because in all these posts because in all these posts because in all these posts because I worked for the museum, the director of the museum. After all, this is not even a job.

This is a way of life. "It seems that in Ma Kalnitsky they called among the best top managers of St. Petersburg. She reacted not without amazement. At least in an interview with the Dog magazine, she noticed:" Do you know what the directors of large museums are called today?

Oddly enough, we are called by top managers - this can be crazy with resentment and pain! Nevertheless - a top manager. Because too many problems are solved by a person who occupies such a position. Problems with people, art, history, technology ... Tourist flow is growing. In Oranienbaum, traffic over the past eight years has increased ten times, and Peterhof is generally the most popular museum of Russia - 5.7 million visitors over the past year.

But attendance is not a criterion for the success of the museum. I am convinced that she does not solve anything. On the contrary, in Peterhof a person must contemplate, be alone with him. And, by the way, for this reason, we are not in demand for excursions in smartphones focused on QR codes: you have to walk in the park, and not run like crazy with your phone, which is something long.

And in order to contemplate, the time and work of the soul is needed. "This does not mean that it did not like new technologies. On the contrary, in the Peterhof Museum, multimedia technologies appeared one of the first in the country. As a person with the first higher technical, a specialist in" automation and telemechanics ", she spoke programmers in the same language, clearly explaining what result she wanted to see on the screen.

Multimedias were partly For a forced step, there were too many losses in the architecture, and in the interiors of the palaces, the digital technologies were a kind of “supplemented reality” - even at the time when Kalnitskaya led the creation of the museum in the Mikhailovsky castle. And the theater lasted a little less than 20 minutes, but it was with a bang.

And in parallel in the Peterhof Museum-Reserve, painstaking restoration work was underway. She believed that "any monument has a soul, and architecture is the materialized character of the owner of the building." The restoration of palaces therefore became the return of this multilayer history. The word "soul", that from the poetic vocabulary of romantics, in the mouths of Elena Yakovlevna sounded as natural as palaces, and things, paintings, and parks were perceived not so much as "museum objects", but like living creatures.

All of them were inhabited, in them there lived a "genius of place". For some reason, it seems that this is a completely Petersburg story. If only because the city arose, if not by a wave, then by the will of one person. And this man, separated from us for centuries, legends, films and novels, school lessons, this king-stroke with golden hands, smart head, and alas! At least for Kalnitskaya, which in M ​​headed the Assembly of the Petrovsky Museums, this transition looked logical.

In the year, in an interview with RG, she talked about work on the children's book about Peter I. The name of the book "Be like Peter" has grown out of their answer. It turned out that they were most amazed at how a person who did not study at an elite school did not graduate from universities and did not have a serious education at all, became what he became. Like a spoiled child in a gold caftan, which grew up in the Moscow chambers surrounded by boyar luxury, suddenly throws everything and creates funny troops - this is his first attempt to change the world around himself.

Realizing that he himself could not cope, Peter began to look for teachers. I always searched them, everywhere, all my life - among friends, among enemies.It was engraved on his ring: "I demand a rite of lectures and students for myself." That is, "I study and demand teachers for myself." It was the principle of his life. "Maybe this is her ability to transfer bridges through the cities, weights and centuries were associated with its feeling that museums do not exist for reporting to the authorities, not as luxurious decorations of solemn techniques, and not even for writing useful scientists, but above all for the joy of the heart and mind.

And the soul, of course. In the mentioned interview, she formed this with her inherent in her inherent in her inherent Clearness: “The museum in the modern world is an absolutely unique institution that makes it possible to store and study works of art and culture as a whole. I can confidently say that the museum gives the opportunity to love, create, and immerse yourself with your head in different historical eras, and remain an absolutely modern person.

”A bright memory and a low bow to you, Elena Yakovlevna!