Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen!

The theme of my speech «Position and Functions Museums facing to the future» is so significant and large that I can talk about it for several hours. However, I will try to be brief and not exceed the allotted time. To provide proofs, I would like (as the time limit permits) to speak about achievements and problems of the State Historical Museum.

The Sate Historical Museum is one of the most famous museums in Russia. It was founded in 1872, and in February of this year we celebrated the 140th anniversary of this event. The museum is situated in the heart of Moscow, in Red Square, in the edifice destined and built specially for museum by the architect Sherwood in 1881. Its exposition, housed in 40 rooms, covers not only a thousand years of Russian history, but also the history of north-eastern Eurasia civilizations from the early Paleolithic Age to the present.

Besides the main building in Red Square the museum includes following sites:
• the magnificent Cathedral of the Intercession (better known as St. Basil's Cathedral), monument of Russian architecture of the 16th century that is a national symbol of Russia
• House of Romanov boyars dated to the 16th-17th centuries that is a family nest of royal dynasty ruled Russia from 1612 till 1917.
• In September of 2012 the State Historical Museum will open, as its part, a museum with a new exhibition complex; it will be the museum of Patriotic War (against Napoleon) in 1812.

The museum's collection, numbering 4.5 million museum objects, and about 14 million sheets of documents, is diverse and unique. In the collection there are monuments of paleontology, history of science and technology, archeology and history from ancient times to the present day; there are also masterpieces of painting, drawing, sculpture, decorative arts, religion, literature, music and theater arts, and architecture. From the date of its foundation the Museum was not only a storage area for monuments, but also the largest scientific and educational center. Annually the Museum is visited by about one million people, 50% (percent) of which are children and young people under 18.

- A contemporary Museum, as exemplified by the State Historical Museum, is a unique, the most visited and accessible public institution in the world fulfilling the functions of preservation, study, completion and presentation of museum objects which are implemented only in their indissoluble unity.

- The main function is to save the museum collection that is not subjected to the depreciation, and is inexhaustible as the very history of the world, guarantees succession and continuity of the global civilization processes in the world, on one side, and allows us to save the national and ethno-cultural identity, on the other.

- A museum, by its very nature, appeals to the emotional and imaginative mechanism of human perception, it is an indispensable tool for formation and development of creative abilities that is especially important during periods of rapid innovation and social and economic development. Therefore, it is all-important to provide every person, regardless of his nationality and place of residence, the ability to see the priceless historical monuments and masterpieces of world art.

- A museum without visitors just loses its nature as a museum without scientifically systematic collection and without museum depositories. Over 70% of museum visitors are children. The need for the development of creative abilities of children and young people makes actual the interaction between the museum and the education system. In its environment an external world of events and phenomena, reflected in the monuments is seamlessly integrated with the inward man that is consonant with the best ideas of humanist thought. It is important that museum enlightenment takes into account age, gender, social and professional factors, educational level, and needs of people with fundamental limitations of the human capacity.

- After the advent of Computers age, quickly passed into the Internet age, the forms (existed in the "Book of civilization") of interaction between the museum and the public began to metamorphose from informative, didactic and passive-educational in what culture experts, museologists, social scientists call "communicative" – that is when a museum visitor becomes a full participant in the process.

- To solve these problems is impossible without high-quality researches directly related both to museum objects, and to the corresponding field of science. The absence of such researches makes impossible to present fully the object to a viewer, and, in the visitor's eyes, transforms the museum into a set of rarities that is deprived of the real connection with historical process.

- In the future for successful implementation of its functions, the museum should be open to integrate in its storage and public activities the advanced technologies that, by no means, contradict the immanent conservatism of the museum as an institution.
Primarily it regards construction of new museum depositories and reconstruction of existent ones, equipping them with modern facilities including such systems as security, fire-fighting, climate control, biological contamination protection system, as well as specialized equipment for research and restoration of museum objects;

- Development and promotion of modern technologies into forms and methods of museum accounting which include those that are based on the latest achievements of information, navigation and nano-technologies;
- Formation and administration of electronic collection catalogs based on a single standard of description of museum objects, and contained all identifying information about each museum object, and large-scale for a multiple search;

For to work out problems that face the museums, the development of international between-museums relationships takes on enormous significance: it can be exchange of exhibitions, between-museums research programs, trainings, or meetings with free exchange of opinion.

In conclusion I'd like to thank one and all for listening and apologize if I tired you with my reasoning.