Una notte al Museo Russo
«I started going to Russia in 1991, more than thirty years ago and, in those years, I think I have been to Petersburg about twenty times. In those twenty trips I have been maybe three times to what, in the West, is the most famous of the Russian museums, the Hermitage, and more than twenty times, twenty-three, I think, to the Russian Museum. Not that I mind, the Hermitage, it's just that, at the Hermitage, there is Western art, at the Russian Museum there is the world's largest collection of Russian art. And, from the very first time, walking through the halls of the Russian Museum felt like I was reading a history book. When people ask me what Dostoevsky's novels tell us about life in Russia in the nineteenth century, it occurs to me that it is true, they tell us a lot, about life in Russia in the nineteenth century, but much more, it seems to me, they tell us about us, about our life now, about our courage and our fear. »