Mikhail Piotrovsky
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Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky (Russian: Михаил Борисович Пиотровский) is the Director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. He was born in Yerevan on 9 November 1944 to Boris Piotrovsky, a notable Orientalist and himself the future Director of the Hermitage.
At the Leningrad University Mikhail Piotrovsky obtained a doctorate in Arabic linguistics. After graduating in 1967, he worked as an interpreter in Yemen and took part in archaeological exploration of the Caucasus. After his father's death in 1990, Piotrovsky was appointed Director of the Hermitage in his stead.
Following the demise of the Iron Curtain, Piotrovsky advocated the opening of the Hermitage collections to the wider world, which resulted in the establishment of the Hermitage Rooms in Somerset House, Hermitage Amsterdam, and Guggenheim Hermitage Museum. His tenure was not entirely free of scandals, however. After the museum announced in July 2006 that 221 minor items, including jewelry, Orthodox icons, silverware and richly enameled objects, had been stolen by one of the museum officials, there were calls for Piotrovsky's resignation.[1]
Piotrovsky has been invested with numerous orders and medals, both Russian and foreign, including the Order of the Rising Sun and the Order of Honor. He has also had a minor planet named after him. Piotrovsky has been Chair of the Board of the First Channel of the Russian television since 2001.
