Rare Color Photos of the AP Interiors from 1917 RETURN to the Palace!

[lilianna]

I bought tickets for February 10. Will be in the museum and will definitely ask about the book!

[bongo]

Thanks for the reply.

I sure hope they return those palms to the Maple Room. ;-)

One thing I've noticed: the palace administrators seem keen to add indoor plants to the palace but judging by their efforts in people's photos (plastic tubs jammed into ill-fitting and inappropriate jardinieres) they seem to be hampered by lack of resources and funds. It would great if the restoration funds for the Alexander Palace enable restoration of the hothouse that Alexandra ordered built, and the purchase of some really suitably grand jardinieres so some of the rooms can be truly brought alive with plants and flowers as they were before the revolution.

[Forum Admin]

One of the things we sent to the Palace was a full year of Russian gardening magazines from 1910 because they had no idea how gardening in Russia was done then! So yes, gardens and plants are part of the long term plan.

[lilianna]

We had an occupation. It was scary. Nazis destroyed all that was in the palaces. Gone are the people who saw the palace before the war. Photo naschli only recently and therefore in the palaces are just starting work on restoration. Documents and photos a little. First revolution, then the war. There is very little. Anatoly Kuchumov only remembered everything. And he died in 1993.

[bongo]

"One of the things we sent to the Palace was a full year of Russian gardening magazines from 1910 "

That's great! One of the wonderful things in Suzanne Massie's book "Land Of The Firebird" is her detailing of the pre-Revolutionary Russian expertise in winter plant and fruit growing. (Does anyone know if the famed transparent skinned 'glass apples' still exist?) And the 19th Century watercolours (in such publications as "Imperial Palaces in the Vicinity of St.Petersburg") are also wonderful in how they detail the Russian love for indoor plants, such as the room divider screens with planter boxes incorporated into them. They really brought it to a high art: such a pity it's been lost.

I see in the Maple Room autochrome that as well as the palms in the big plant basins there's the common houseplant monsteria deliciosa. Can't make the rest. But there's also a photo of Alexandra showing what appears to be the plant basins filled with flowers. What's also notable in the Alexandra photo is how luxuriously thick the wall to wall carpet appears to be.

[Sanochka]

Bongo, they do.  They're still widely grown in Russia and Poland, where they're known as "white transparents."  The cultivar was introduced to the United States in the 1870s, and are grown to this day in New England and the Pacific Northwest.  Here, they're known as "yellow transparents.

[bongo]

Thanks for that info. They do look lovely: http://adamapples.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/yellow-transparent.html

[lilianna]

I arrived yesterday from Tsarskoye Selo. In the museum I was told that the book is printed and very soon arrive Museum. I saw the layout of the book.

[bongo]

I do hope the donated materials are stored better than those in the Russian State Archives. I've just watched a french documentary online which featured an archivist taking out Romanov materials to display for the cameras and I was shocked at the curatorial standards: Nicholas and Alexandra's diaries were stored in the cheapest worn cardboard folders imaginable and the curator grasped the pages with the full grip of her bare fingers and palm and turned them to AF's final entry etc. etc. Really depressing! Especially with AF's entries written in pencil! They clearly need millions of dollars thrown at the archives storage to get it scratch. But how much do white cotton gloves cost?!!!

[lilianna]

I saw our, Russian, a film in which photos and letters touched gloves! If we had kept bad archive Romanovs survived until our days. In such a large archive folders stored all the time. Large historical archive and everything is stored only way.
For example:
Russian historical archives - 300 years.
http://www.newstube.ru/media/rossijskomu-istoricheskomu-arxivu-300-let?utm_source=newstube&utm_medium=inside&utm_content=similar&utm_campaign=newstube.
1.28 min.

[blessOTMA]

Indeed. I have to say I often grimace when watching "experts " handling books and other paper  on  the Antiques Roadshows , both UK and US  programs. They practically lick their fingers  to turn a page ! Always toughing the page to underline a passage! AGGHH

[bongo]

Here's just a single example of a curator plowing through Romanov diaries and letters with bare hands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYo8SEvnsrM&t=14m0s

It's by far not the worst example of video evidence that can be viewed on YouTube. There's several others.

These curators need to be disciplined and told to adhere to proper international standards and to handle all precious materials with clean curatorial gloves or face dismissal. I've seen this behaviour before with archivists. I know the psychology. They see themselves as custodians of these materials, but in doing so they become very proprietorial and begin to see the materials as "theirs", and even identify with the original writers as their friends and family. So, backed up by their own opinion of themselves as experts, they begin to treat the material casually as their own belongings, rather than belonging to the public.   

[lilianna]

So do all the museums of the world. I know a lot of workers archives and museums. They are wonderful and kind people. Their job is to preserve the history and therefore they are in things like children. To do this, in all libraries and archives make digital collection. For example, Anna Taneeva archive, which we can see on their computers.

[Janet Ashton]

Here's just a single example of a curator plowing through Romanov diaries and letters with bare hands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYo8SEvnsrM&t=14m0s

It's by far not the worst example of video evidence that can be viewed on YouTube. There's several others.

These curators need to be disciplined and told to adhere to proper international standards and to handle all precious materials with clean curatorial gloves or face dismissal. I've seen this behaviour before with archivists. I know the psychology. They see themselves as custodians of these materials, but in doing so they become very proprietorial and begin to see the materials as "theirs", and even identify with the original writers as their friends and family. So, backed up by their own opinion of themselves as experts, they begin to treat the material casually as their own belongings, rather than belonging to the public.  

She is not doing anything wrong. "Proper international standards" of conservation and preservation today recognise that white gloves can do more harm than good. They can be as dirty as fingers - or dirtier - and they deaden sensation, leading to accidents. Conservation standards suggest that people handle documents with a light touch of clean fingerstips - exactly as the curator is doing here.

Clearly no-one would allow themselves to be filmed obviously flouting professional standards. Ask a conservator or read some of their professional literature.

(And this notice to the general user, for example: -

http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/the-gloves-are-off/)

[lilianna]

Avtohromy Lukomskogo keeper Victoria Plaude (granddaughter Kuchumov, director of the Alexander Palace until 1941) takes the gloves!
Do not say that in Russia we all do wrong.
 Here is the link: http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=17195.new; topicseen # new