I heard on public radio today that St. Petersburg is celebrating its 300th birthday. They had an all night celebration at the Hermitage (sp?) like they used to in the old days whereby politics would be discussed into the wee hours of the night.
They also discussed the fact that in the early 90's because of lack of government funding the building became in disrepair and even had times where the heat was shut off because of not paying the bill.
It was also stated that since then alliances with sponsoring business's have stabilized the economics of the museum. There was a showing of Andy Whorhal (sp?) that evening that many Russians did not think was even art - seeing a picture of Campbell's soup for example.