It is widely believed that queueing is the British national passion. On numerous occasions we have been told that the British love making an orderly queue at the every opportunity. But there is one field where the Russians can easily compete with the Brits, and that’s standing in a museum queue.
Back in February 2002 the exhibition of Claude Monet was about to close at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. On the very last day I and my late husband went there. It was very cold, and the queue was extending for some 600 metres. We did actually queue up, and eventually we got in. I do remember the Rouen Cathedral series, but frankly I was more astonished by the fact that I managed the queue and got into the museum than by the invaluable canvasses.
Every time there is a must-see exhibition at the Pushkin Museum there is a massive queue of people standing outside, waiting to get in. No weather conditions seem to influence the choice: when it comes to art, we Russians can withstand frost and wind, heat and rain.
This time it is the final days of the exhibition dedicated to Christian Dior and his work (in Russian). And below is the photo of the endless queue of people who ditch the precautions and get tanned in the direct sunlight, while waiting to see the miracle of haute couture of the 20th c.
If you ask me, I would gladly see one of my main museums introducing a scheme similar to the one that was used at the National Gallery in 2004. The museum couldn’t cope with the influx of visitors who wanted to see Raphael. So people were issued with tickets obliging them to visit the exhibition at a specific time, neither earlier nor later. And, in my opinion, it would be a grand solution for the Pushkin Museum, too. But for now the Muscovites are being as British as they can and queue up.
