Regarding the girls who slipped into the Hermitage for a commercial shoot, avoiding the official fee for this kind of use of museum spaces, the following must be understood

No one's private commercial interests should be placed on the opposite pan of the scales from good order in one of the world's foremost museums. For many years the Hermitage has set an example to numerous international institutions in how to keep and display the world's cultural heritage, building the dialogue between visitors and the museum and its collection with great clarity and propriety.

In my view, the conduct of the girls, which has come under scrutiny after a viral video on Reels, is simply dishonest: we can all see that a commercial shoot for some local brand did in the end appear on the accounts connected with them, while the visitors had assured a member of the admissions staff that they were merely dressed up and had no intention of filming anything. There you have it: deceit and a breach of the rules governing conduct in the museum.

I constantly hold up the Hermitage as a model to other museums, Russian and foreign alike, for its order within, its comfort for visitors, the correctness of its staff and many other qualities, and in this affair too I am wholly on the museum's side. Strict and clear rules are the guarantee of preserving the collections and the museum culture, which, alas, the leading museums of the world are rapidly losing.