The “Davos in the desert” investment conference included an exhibition of works from Russia
Tu Yifan/Xinhua/Alamy
The State Hermitage Museum has held talks with Saudi officials to explore the possibility of opening a satellite in the Gulf state. The meeting took place earlier this year during Hermitage Day in Oman, part of the Russian museums practice of taking short-term exhibitions and lectures to locations around the world as a form of soft power.
Writing in a column for the St Petersburg Vedomosti newspaper, the museums director Mikhail Piotrovsky described Oman as a country that “acts as an intermediary in discussions between other nations”. Hermitage Day was held in March at the National Museum in Muscat, where Piotrovsky, who is dean of St Petersburg Universitys Faculty of Oriental Studies, also gave a talk in Arabic on “the distinctive features of the study and presentation of Islamic art in the Hermitage”.
Piotrovsky was part of a Russian delegation to Riyadh last October for the “Davos in the desert” investment conference held several weeks after the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. International controversy continues over Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans role in the killing. Russias participation in the conference included an exhibition of works from the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg and a meeting between Piotrovsky and the crown prince about museum co-operation.
In 2011, the Hermitage hosted the travelling Saudi exhibition Roads of Arabia: Archaeological Treasures of Saudi Arabia. Piotrovsky said last November after his trip toRead More – Source
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