Mikhail Piotrovsky's interview with the Echo of Moscow radio station on the programme “Time Not Gone By”

Maya Peshkova: With this programme “Time Not Gone By” about the Piotrovskys I should like to begin a cycle of programmes about Russian dynasties. The stimulus for it came from a publication entitled “Three Centuries in the Service of Russia” at the very start of this year.

I would like to ask you about your father, Academician Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky, who devoted a quarter of a century to the Hermitage. Your father was born in 1908, on 14 February, and they called him Boris after his father. I wanted to ask, Mikhail Borisovich, remembering your father very well, as you do, you continued his cause, how is your father imprinted on your memory?

Mikhail Piotrovsky: I do not have any first memories of how my father stuck in my mind, because we always lived together, we always lived alongside each other. He is no longer with us, but I can remember him very well even now. I sit in his chair at work, in his office. So he is a constant presence and I don’t have any first or last recollections of him. It was a peculiarity of our family that we were always together, that a person had two homes: the Hermitage was one home, and then there was the other. For all of us, the Hermitage was always home, whatever season, whatever time of day, we were always together. So, it’s a constant collective presence. That is why I don’t have separate recollections, it’s a close unbroken memory of the family that constantly senses a merging into one. That’s how it was when we were children: Dad and Mum were with us.

The recording of the full interview is available for listening on the Echo of Moscow website:
https://echo.msk.ru/sounds/2786320.html