Unexpected collections
ting access to factory workers and privileged guests. “In Tsarist Russia, the factory and later a visit to its museum was a special treat for the royal family guests who were taken there and received porcelain masterpieces as gifts,” says the museum’s director Tatyana Kudryavtseva. In the Soviet era, exclusive access became the rule. The museum’s guest books read like a “Who’s Who” of Rus-
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sian history, with the autographs of the Romanovs, of poets Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova, and artist Kazimir Malevich. › The Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory 151 Prospekt Obukhovskoi Oborony • www.ipm-gallery.ru • www.hermitagemuseum.org
THE ECHO OF HISTORY At the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, the luxurious ceremonial dinner services ordered by the Tsars (above) are on show along with decorative objects and Bolshevik propaganda chess sets from the post-revolutionary period. Opposite page, the State Museum of Theatre and Music is home to memorabilia once belonging to the greatest classical ballet dancers; one of the allegoric figures on the façade of the Stieglitz Academy.
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