Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovskiy

Mr. Piotrovsky has held the position of Director of the State Hermitage Museum since 1992. He is carrying out the “Great Hermitage” programme aimed at introducing the museum’s collections to the nation’s and world’s audience by setting up the Hermitage “satellites” in Amsterdam, London, Venice, Kazan, and Vyborg, and opening new museum space at the General Staff building and the Small Hermitage and several buildings of the Open centre for storage and conservation. He has published over 300 works on history and culture of the Arab world, history of Islam and the Quran as well as museum studies. He has taken part in archeological excavations in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and on the Arabian Peninsula. He has produced over 300 TV films about the Hermitage. Mr. Piotrovsky is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Arts, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, France, and National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.