Peter the Great found Amsterdam an inspiring place. The Russian tsar lived in the city in 1697 and was impressed by its waterways, bridges and its citizens’ commercial nous. He liked the place so much that when he got back home, he created a city in its image – St Petersburg – with the help of many thousands of conscripted peasants and Swedish prisoners of war.
During his Dutch sojourn Peter would have passed the extensive façade of a building known as the Amstelhof, built 14 years prior to his arrival as a home for elderly women of the city.
Today, over 300 years later, the great tsar is back – in spirit at least.
On 20 June the Amstelhof will become the home for the major western European offshoot of St Petersburg’s Hermitage museum, following a $50m restoration project that began in 2007.
The building had served as a nursing home until 1990, when it was deemed to be no longer fit for purpose, but the beginning of its new incarnation came in 1996, when Ernst Veen – director of the city’s Nieuwe Kerk museum – visited the building with Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage in St Petersburg and someone with whom he had already co-operated on exhibitions.
Piotrovsky was smitten, grasping the idea that this could be the home for a major western European satellite for Russia’s outstanding art collection. ‘In Moscow this was – and is – seen as a really serious project,’ says Veen, adding that Russian premier Dmitry Medvedev will be present at the opening celebrations. ‘It has great potential not only to be a cultural embassy, but also to help to bring nations together. Here, we’ll tell stories through art and that should help us understand each other better.’
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