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Appendix 1

Interviews with experts from the State Hermitage Museum

Expert 1

Anna Tyrenko

Manager of the sector “Youth Center in General Staff”

What is the role of the youth center in the State Hermitage Museum?

The Youth Center is a part of the Hermitage's science and education department, we develop educational programs for contemporary art exhibitions, conduct public lectures and various events that are somehow related to exhibitions. Initially, the Youth Center emerged from the Student club. Now we have two branches: the first is public, open to all comers, these are activities, excursions, intellectual marathons, and the second branch is a student club, where we spend 10-15 different sections throughout the year. Students sign up for them in October and take classes such as French art, contemporary art, music, etc.

What is the mission of the Youth Center??

The main mission of Youth Center is to educate young people, attract young people to the museum. Recently, a certain trend has been observed: the museum is no longer a conservative place where nothing is possible. The Hermitage is a story about education; children come here from the beginning of their study at school, Hermitage is a very important platform that allows to accumulate various resources, primarily human ones.

What is your role in the work of the Youth Center??In cooperation with other employees, I create educational programs, participate in their organization, sometimes implement, that is, read lectures, hold special events.

What types of activities does the Youth Center hold??

The largest block of events is lectures, which take place several times a week. There are big cycles and separate lectures, timed to coincide with temporary exhibitions. In addition, we carry out art mediations at exhibitions of contemporary art. We also hold conferences, public meetings with artists. Special pride for us is an intellectual marathon: an event dedicated to exhibitions. In fact, this is a chain of various events, discussions, musical performances, film screenings, DJ-sets which take place in the General Staff Building.

What activities are now more popular among young people?

As far as we can judge by the attendance of our exhibitions and by some interviews with young people, they are looking for contemporary art. In addition, we do not have many places where modern art can be seen. Again, these are our marathons, they are very popular among young people.

What is the most influential factor of attractiveness?

If we are talking about lectures, then first of all it is the topic, if it is completely unknown, then it becomes more difficult for us to attract. To understand some lectures, exhibitions, you need to know the context in which the art was created. Sometimes it is not enough to say: “come to the exhibition”. Then we are doing a series of educational posts on Vkontakte and Instagram, so people could understand what awaits them, we create a moment of recognition, and even then, we could see a positive result of the visit. The speaker is still important, people are interested in the author's view of the concrete topic, the personality of the lecturer itself is interesting. Regarding other events, now podcasts, TED become very popular. Therefore, young people like speakers, discussions with them. There is also an entertainment aspect, parties, master classes, music. Such interdisciplinary activities of the Youth Center are always the most interesting.

Is there any negative trend in attendance at museum events by young people under 25?

If so, what do you think, what is the reason??I would not say that there is a negative trend. Young people often come to the museum, but we have a competition with other entertainment places, for example, with New Holland and other cultural institutions. There is still a problem with children's experiences of conservative museum visits. If the child is not prepared, museum can permanently turn him away from art. The child may not return, there may be a reaction of rejection. After that, it is more difficult to return to the museum by yourself. Nevertheless, in recent years, the museum has become a place of power: young people begin to perceive the museum as a place of creative freedom, they come here themselves, with friends, and not with their parents or their school.

Do you change the student education program? If so, how often? What does it depend on?

Our program is updated every year, we focus on our previous experience. For example, last year we had three lectures by Ekaterina Bychkova on the topic “Notes on fashion and costume”. The audience liked them very much, and these lectures turned into seminars lasting a whole year. We intuitively feel which lectures and other events attract people more. Also, the attractiveness is clearly visible in marathons: how many people are left after one part of the program, and how many after the other.

How does your target audience learn about the activities of the Youth Center??

People learn about our center mostly through word of mouth. There are also such channels as social networks.

Based on your experience, how do you think which channels of attraction are effective for young people, which are not??VKontakte is the most attractive channel, Instagram is an opportunity to attract young people using beautiful picture, the visual works well for young people. Facebook gives a very small audience, unless it is some very big event with star lecturers.

Are there any restrictions on the methods of self-promotion??

Being a Youth Center, we cannot advertise ourselves strongly, we do it in more neutral ways. We do not create ads like the one that pops up on the side of social networks, otherwise we are going to the level of the entertainment industry. All the same, we are at a certain cultural level, we are an authority, because of our position we strictly treat ourselves, our reputation, and it also applies to advertising. Our goal is not so much to attract as to build relationships, to show that we carry out activities that are useful for young people.

How do you measure the success of events? How do you know that an event was particularly successful?

If this is a lecture, then I watch the attendance, I monitor the registration, how many have been registered and how many have come. I also always pay attention to the feedback after a big event. People very rarely leave positive comments on social networks, and if they don't like something, they write. Usually noticeable activity is seen on Instagram: how many people posted photos, videos from the event, wrote a review, subscribed to our pages on social networks. Subsequently, how many people began to participate in activities of the Youth Center.

People of what age most often visit Youth Center?

We do not have a clear distribution. Previously, we did not take measurements by the age of the audience. If we are talking about a student club, then there, of course, are young students. Regarding general activities, there are practically no senior schoolchildren at all; students from 3-4 courses come more often, usually only at this point young people begin to learn that there is a Youth Center in the Hermitage. We also have a decent number of visitors of retirement age. Feels like the least visitors are 30-35 years old.

Who more often attend your activities: boys or girls?

There are much more girls. I think this is connected to a certain extent with stereotypes about museums among boys.

Describe a typical visitor of the events of the Youth Center. What kind of people are these?

What are they interested in, what are their attitudes, describe their character traits.?I would say that this is a “creative” or “near-creative” audience. Most often these are young, creative people with a humanities degree. Basically, they have a certain intellectual knowledge, they come to us not to socialize, but to engage in self-education, to receive new knowledge. We also have a large percentage of people not from St. Petersburg, these people try to enter the “community” as much as possible, meet new people, find like-minded people. They come to our Youth Center for these things.

Do you make a segmentation of your audience by age, gender, hobbies, any other indicators? If so, how do the ways of promoting your events change depending on the audience??We just recently started to segment visitors. For us, this is more likely a segmentation by level and type of education. I can use pop cultural notes, for example, on Instagram. The audience of the social network VKontakte is very diverse, I maintain the official style there.

What event formats / topics are the most popular among young people aged 14-25?

They are interested in dialogue, the opportunity to speak, therefore art mediation is more preferable than excursions. Generation Z as a whole is interested in everything that allows self-actualization so that their voice is heard. Our experimental activities work well for us. For example, there was an interesting exhibition by Tony Cragg, where young people created music based on sculptures, so that people who cannot see would have the opportunity to “hear” the sculpture. And we have quite a lot of such stories. We give this generation the knowledge from which they can start, we give creative freedom. When you establish an emotional contact, and young people see that they can be heard, the attitude to the museum also changes.

What do you think is the most important when working with Generation Z?

We are building a horizontal relationship with them, personal interaction. After the activities of the Youth Center, they are ready for a more classical format of events, lectures, excursions.

What opportunities for future development do you see at the Youth Center?

Now we are starting to work on the international program “15/24”. The Hermitage received a Dutch grant to attract young people. The Youth Center is one of the blocks, we focus on age, we start doing focus groups, we explore different methods of interacting with a young audience.

Expert 2?Ekaterina Sharova

The head of “News sector” (Press Center of the State Hermitage Museum)

What is the role of the Hermitage Press Service?

We have a wide range of activities, but the main thing is supporting exhibitions, writing press releases, organizing invitations to journalists, and filming support. We also support events that take place in the Hermitage, on the official website of the museum and on social networks; We work with the media, upon request we provide them with information about exhibitions and other events. In addition, we work with such events as Vkontakte Festival, Intermuseum, VK Hackathon.

How are you involved in the process of promoting museum events and what is your area of responsibility?

I am the head of the news section of the information projects department. Accordingly, I run news channels, conduct online broadcasts, work with editors and photographers, and also organize various events. For each person we have assigned different exhibitions, press shows, shooting. In my case, this is all that concerns the Hermitage news sector.

What does the Press Service perform to attract the audience to the museum?

In general, we have no goal of attracting visitors globally, we have a large flow of visitors. We set ourselves two main tasks: to inform readers and bring them where they do not usually go.

What advertising tools and channels are used?

For example, we inform people about the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Center and the General Staff building. This is already through social networks or some projects like the Museums Night, the VKontakte festival or Lectorium. We practically do not meet the real visitor. Our visitors can “touch” our museum through online broadcasts and through news in social networks. However, no matter how popular social networks are, we have about 250 thousand followers on VKontakte, 300 thousand on Instagram, but Komsomolskaya Pravda has a circulation of 1 million copies. Of course, 250 thousand and 1 million are different things. Therefore, print media remains an effective channel for us to promote. Mailings are still working well, we are doing them either on a wide range or on agent circles and television. We have information partners with whom we cooperate. There is a pool of journalists who write about the Hermitage. For example, Kira Dolinina in Kommersant. We also focus on television. People still watch TV a lot, it also goes to the Internet, many TV channels broadcast on their social networks. The Hermitage, for example, works a lot with the St. Petersburg channel. We use almost all social networks, that is, VK, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. The biggest number of followers is on Twitter - there are about 800 thousand of people. Saint Petersburg audience prefer VKontakte and Facebook. On Twitter, we have short messages, on Instagram, due to the specifics of the social network, everything is in the form of the photos, VKontakte and Facebook texts are about the same. It is interesting that users of VKontakte react more, comment on posts, there is feedback. On Facebook, people read our news, but the response is much smaller.

Is there a specificity in the promotion of certain types of events? If so, what is it?

For example, we do not promote VKontakte Festival on our page VKontakte, as our subscribers are mostly not the people who attend this festival. The same situation happens with Intermuseum and VK Hackathon. We can write about how the event was held and post photos, but we will not advertise it on our page. We often write about other events in social networks. We are monitored by various media, information is already well diverted from them to potential visitors.

How is the effectiveness of advertising campaigns evaluated?

Every day we monitor the media. We use the services of the company “Nikolaev e: Consulting”, which helps to track the position of the Hermitage in the information field. In this way, we can determine what the media wrote about us.

Based on your experience, how do you think which channels of attraction are effective for young people, which are not?

Young people are attracted less through the print media, although they continue to be popular, but youngsters mostly read online media. There is, for example, the print media Gazeta Bumaga, Afisha, The Village, Sobaka.ru. If online media request information about our events, we give it to them, we invite various media to events. We also use social networks. But, paradoxically, we have few young people in social networks. 25 percent of the audience there are women around 45 years old. Nevertheless, it can be noted that young people like live video broadcasts, they actively watch them.

What is the target audience of the Press Service in the social networks?

We need to reach the maximum of all, we don't make a segmentation of the public.

Are there any difficulties when you, on the one hand, should be conservative and offer classical art for consideration, and on the other hand, be modern in order to speak the same language with a young audience? If so, how do you handle it?

You can be modern, but at the same time speak a normal language. We do not switch to youth slang, we have a classic language of writing texts, we cannot say “cool Rembrandt” about art, art is beyond stereotypes. On the website our language is very official, and in social networks it is a less formal way of communicating with the audience. Texts on contemporary art exhibitions are usually different from the classical ones. If we take the post with a modern exhibition, there will be another language. In social networks is more personal communication. People love feedback, when we give likes to them, answer their comments and questions, congratulate them on holidays.

Are there any restrictions on the methods of self-promotion?

We do not use negative campaigning, scandals, never use such things to attract visitors. We also have restrictions on the publication of unconfirmed information. Any news material must be coordinated with the press service.

What are the most popular events among young people at the Hermitage?

I can give an example of what we are working on. The VKontakte festival is held every year, and many visit the stand of the Hermitage at this festival. Mostly these are young, out-of-town young people. We try to make useful and interesting workshops so that the Hermitage will be remembered for them, but there is no surge in subscriptions and followings after such festivals. Usually we create master classes on the basis of the Hermitage expositions, so people can make something with their own hands and take it with them.

Also, in 2018, we performed Hackathon. Hackathon is a specific audience, usually we do not have this category of visitors. They like to solve problems, like the atmosphere of the event, overcoming themselves. The average age of these guys is about 24 years old. The youth audience is not very familiar with the museum, and while solving the cases of the Hermitage, they learn more about the museum. After this event, participants come to the Hermitage, become more interested in our activities.

Our goal is to tell more. To catch the public, although it is not always ours, there are people who are not interested in museums.

Describe the visitors to the State Hermitage Museum. Does the museum divide its visitors into segments according to some features?

I can judge more about subscribers in social networks. It is important to note that visitors and subscribers in social networks are different groups of people. These groups can intersect, but they are absolutely non-identical to each other, it has always been like this, it happens in all museums, many studies have proved it. We have a lot of tourists. They just come and come to the Hermitage, because it is the most important museum in Russia, not associating it with its profiles in social networks. They do not need it: they come to see the royal residence, world art. And our subscribers are people from other cities, they like the Hermitage, they want to visit it, maybe they have never been to it, and the social network is an opportunity to touch the museum at least virtually, through posts and broadcasts. Among the visitors' people from Saint Petersburg are less than tourists. They go on excursions to the Hermitage at school, with the whole class, and then stop going.

What is the relationship of the Hermitage with young people from 14 to 25 years? Are there any trends or changes in the last three years?

I would divide this audience into schoolchildren under 18 and young people from 18 to 25. I think now there are very few of them in the Hermitage. However, there are more young people which come to see contemporary art exhibitions. Young people are hard to catch, especially boys, they don't visit the museum. Perhaps this is due to the association with the fact that the museum is something old, conservative.

What do you think is most important when working with a young audience?

It is important to understand what they want. I can judge by the comments on social networks. Anyway, we can keep track of it. As I said, young people like video, especially video broadcasting, this format is important to them.

What opportunities do you see for promoting the activities of the Hermitage among young people aged 14-25?

This year, the Hermitage will launch an international project, the Museum 15/24, in order to attract young people from 15 to 24 years old.

Expert 3

Elena Filippova

Employee of the Lectorium in the General Staff

People of what age most often visit Lectorium?

At the end of our lecture season, we conducted a survey among students in order to find out the age and gender composition of our audience, to understand which programs they like most of all and where they prefer to receive information about Lectorium events. As the statistics showed, our audience is mostly women from 25 to 40-50 years old. They are active, stylish and want to develop. In general, women are the most important consumers, they consume more than men. They are more active, again. They are easier to attract.But two years ago, everything was completely different. When I started working at the State Hermitage Museum, the majority of the audience at the Hermitage Lecture Hall were pensioners. Me and our designer started to rebrand lecture format, and the audience has changed a lot. Previously, no one dealt with promotion of Lectorium, there were only printed booklets. Now I am actively engaged in a dialogue with the audience and with our partners, regularly contacting the media. The Lectorium events are published in the online newsletter “Bumaga”. Another newspaper “Sobaka.ru” writes about us at the beginning of each lecture season, it attracts their audience to our lectures. We also have our own mailing list.

Please describe the young audience of Lectorium (14-25 years).

Our audience is the widest, but the percentage of young people is not so large, probably about 15% of them. Young people mostly attend lectures at the Youth Center, because they are for free. But, nevertheless, we want our program to be interesting for young people as well, because these are future graduates of universities, people who want to improve and expand their existing knowledge, that is, our potential buyers of tickets.

Is it possible to divide it into groups like age, interests, character? How do interests differ depending on these groups?

We do not divide into groups neither youth nor adult audience. Season tickets and openings of the season are very popular, we have no reason to segment the audience. Nevertheless, I can say that young students of Lectorium, as a rule, look decent, follow the fashion, lead an active lifestyle, go to museums. Personally, it is difficult for me to judge their character, because Lectorium, unlike the Youth Center, do not personally interact with young people. A lot of students come to us from the Academy of Arts, from related specialties and those who want to get a job in the Hermitage.

What lecture formats / topics are most popular among young people aged 14-25?

Lectures on contemporary art and courses that are designed for three years are the most popular. We also have an annual course in the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Center, there are also a lot of young people there.

Unlike the Youth Center, Lectorium has a long course called the University of Art History. It is designed for three years, but the lectures can be attended in any sequence, even several courses at a time. This is a course, designed for 3 years, it gives knowledge of art from ancient times to the present day, and it is very systematic and consistent, as a course at the university. The Youth Center has short semi-annual courses and more private, narrowly focused, for example, a course about music. And they still be more about contemporary art. The Lectorium covers everything: from archeology to the Flemish school of painting.

What motivates young people to come to lectures?

The need for third place. That is, there is a home, study or work, and you need something else. And recently it has just become fashionable to attend lectures connected with art. Therefore, so many lectoriums appeared. In addition to the well-known Masters, KGallery opened its lecture program, the Russian Museum did the same, and so on. Unfortunately, many lectures such as the “Right Hemisphere of Art Criticism” are created by non-professionals.

Are there any changes in visiting Lectorium by young people under 25? If so, what do you think, what is the reason?

There were more young people in the last two years. I think it happened due to the development of social networks of Lectorium. Plus, we completely changed the polygraphy, made it in the same style with social networks, created a single identity and this had a positive effect on attendance.

What do you think is most important when working with a youth audience?

First, good and interesting lectures. The lecturers of the Hermitage possess a colossal store of knowledge, very few people can compare with them, but not all of them are good storytellers, and this is also important. Secondly, visual content plays a big role in attracting young people. A young audience now loves watching. If we make unsightly posters, tasteless books and posts, then no one will come.

What channels of promotion does Lectorium use?

The promotion channels of Lectorium's educational programs are divided into two types: online and offline. All our printing and information stands in the museum is offline channels. Lectorium of The Hermitage Museum has no analog among other museums, we have a very rich program, so every month we publish a booklet with a schedule of lectures. Booklet is distributed in public places. Some people come to us through social networks, for example, the cafй “Coffee 22” and “Brother”. There are no banners around the city, the marketing department is involved in this, we manage it ourselves. Our second direction is online channels: social networks, website. The site is less useful for us as it is difficult to update it promptly. In social networks, it is easier for visitors to keep track of our information, our social networks are actively maintained and well developed, I think. We are currently on VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram. VKontakte is the most convenient social network in order to follow the schedule. From there, most people follow the news. Facebook is much more complicated, it leads fewer people. This is a social network that asks for money, and if you don't invest money there for advertising, it is very difficult to develop it. But in VKontakte the audience is simpler, and in Facebook users at least speak English.

Which of these channels are the most effective for young people?

It's hard to say where exactly young people come from. I like most of all our Instagram profile, it develops more actively than others. People from there are friendly, they like everything, they tag us, subscribe to us. But there are not only young people, there are also a lot of people aged 25-40. In the Instagram profile there is a link to the current schedule, here I also promote various lectures. VKontakte has a new system of smart news, and it became more difficult to inform people about our activities. For the last two years we have been doing this: we publish weekly schedule, monthly schedule, and announcement the day before the lecture. It turns out at least two posts per day, this is a lot, because now all social networks are set up to raise certain posts in the top, and some of them move down, and if you post a lot, then you just fall down. All SMM managers recommend doing two posts a week, not more. Therefore, I don't really like the way our VKontakte profile works now, we will redo it completely. We also want to make online sales, now all tickets and subscriptions are sold only at the ticket office. Because of a single cash system, we are limited in the use of platforms like TimePad, we need to create our own, and this is expensive. But we will do it, since the method of payment also affects the composition of the audience.

Expert 4 Ekaterina Kuvakina

Coordinator of the project "Museum 15/24" in the State Hermitage Museum

Tell us about project “15/24”, what is the purpose of this project?

The idea of creating the project “15/24” came from my colleagues from the Hermitage XXI Century Fund. The project is quite complex and is still transforming, since the idea is quite ambitious, but the main goal is our desire to connect people between 15 and 24 years old. It would seem that this is a very different audience, but we want to see what they have in common, and how they can communicate in museum environment, we will see how they react to it. Young people of different ages can teach each other a lot. Students are recent schoolchildren. Recently, we had four focus groups, two groups of teenagers from schools and two groups of students. We saw that schoolchildren were more accustomed to listening, to be more silent, and the students, on the contrary, they dominant themselves, they prefer discussion. Between many of them there is only two years of difference, and already such a different perception. We are sure that these guys can give a lot of things to each other.

How is the project carried out in the Hermitage?

Our project is divided into 7 thematic blocks. One of them is at the base of the Youth Center. There is the creation of methodological materials, which colleagues plan to share with teachers, specialists in attraction of young people to the museum space. Our colleagues conduct focus groups, see if the particular technique works or not. The technique should be universal so that it can be used both on a small exhibition and on a big one. It should combine different methods of work with the new generation.

How does the Youth Center gain focus groups?

The youth center develops a program for 8 classes, they recruit two groups of 15 people. One group consists of young people who are familiar with the programs of the Hermitage, and are related to the consumption of art. The second group may be interested in art, but not go deeply into it, I would say that they have the so-called beginner level. We look at how both of these groups react to the classes offered to them, because at the end of each of these courses there should be a finished project, whether it turns out or not, how children perceive it, whether something new has appeared in their behavior or not. According to the results of the study, we will hold seminars with the participation of foreign colleagues, propose new solutions.

What is the time period of the project 15/24?

The project began in December 2018, but if we talk specifically on the basis of the Youth Center, it started in January 2019. It is planned that the project will end in November 2020. The other part of the Hermitage is also included in this project and creates platforms for two areas: one is methodical, for working with young people, and the second is educational games, special activities for young people.

What is your role in this project?

I am engaged in the technical implementation of the project. the Hermitage XXI Century Fund received a grant to carry out this activity, and I was invited as the project coordinator. I communicate in the Hermitage, I control the deadlines, plans, I check if we are on the right direction. My task is to control, coordinate the activities of all blocks.

What formats and types of events are popular among Generation Z?

I would say that they somehow like everything, every topic has its own audience. It is difficult to understand what they like and what they don't. In general, they are interested in the combination of classic and innovative formats, for example, art mediation, subject-related reading, marathons, discussions, practical tasks, when these young people do something by themselves. In the last focus group, we gave young people the task to find out what beauty is in the museum and make a video about this topic. Everyone had their own unique result. But someone may be more interesting to attend lectures, it is difficult to classify. We have not done this research yet. The participants who have at least minimal knowledge of art, easily perform our tasks. Those who do not have special knowledge, need more attention, we have to be more delicate with them. For these people, everything is unique.

Which promotional channels are most effective for young people?

Here we must understand that we work in the Hermitage, and there is no problem in the number of visitors. Whatever channel you use, somebody will definitely come. Among promotion channels, we use mainly social networks, they are more understandable to young people, recruitment to our groups passes through ads on social networks. Most often, people are attracted through Vkontakte.

Please describe the young audience of the museum. Is it possible to divide them in different groups?

It seems to me that if you divide the youth, then you need to do it according to the purpose of the visit. Young people who study at art or history faculties come with certain goals. For them, visiting a museum is a source of knowledge, sometimes, the academic one. But there is a huge part of this generation in the Youth Center, who have a human interest in an event, in a specific lecturer or practical task. Many come for self-development. Today we can see the trend that being educated is prestigious and cool. Young people want to be trendy, more creative, know what they are talking about, join the intellectual life.

Are there more girls or boys?

I would say that there are more girls, but we have a lot of boys as well. For example, three or four boys out of 15 people participated in the focus group. Concerning preferences, as it seems to me, there are no particular differences.

What is the most important while working with young people?

In my opinion, the most important thing is the identity of those who work with young people.If you are not ready to accept them different with their specificity, if you are not ready to adapt and look for ways, then nothing happens. It is important that you and your colleagues are on the same wavelength. The atmosphere itself is important.

What opportunities do you see for promoting the activities of the Hermitage among young people aged 14-25?

Now in our project a kind of analogue of the student council is being created, it will be called the “International Youth Advisory Council”. It will include 20 guys from Holland and Russia, and together they will take part in the development of our project.

Expert 5

Alexandra Sheveleva

Methodist of "Youth Center in the General Staff"

What is your role in the Youth Center?

I am a methodologist of the scientific and educational department. Together with colleagues, we work on educational programs for exhibitions of contemporary art, prepare programs and then carry out activities related to the program, carry out lectures, excursions, art mediations. In addition, we organize special events in the museum, thematic meetings with artists, famous people, or events such as intellectual marathons.

Young people of what age are more likely to come to the museum?

Most of our visitors are high school students and young people from universities, since we have a student club exists in the State Hermitage Museum for a long time. This generation is the main part of our work, but older people also come to us: those who are interested in our projects.

Please describe the young audience of the museum.

It is quite difficult to describe; Generation Z is a very multifaceted phenomenon. But I can say for sure that the audience of the youth center is very interested people. They differ from schoolchildren who visit the Hermitage. People come to us because they want it themselves, because they are very interested in our activities. Usually we do not have random people. Most of them want to experience the educational activities in the museum. Our audience is different from ordinary museum visitors.

Is it possible to divide them in different groups?

I would divide them into two categories - those who are interested in art, but don't have professional art education and those who study in humanities, who come to improve their horizons and academic knowledge. I would call these two groups professionals and amateurs.

Are there more girls or boys?

Of course, girls come much more than boys. I think this happens everywhere in the museums.

What motivates young people to visit The State Hermitage Museum, The youth Center?

Interesting events, different forms of activity in the museum are important, but at the same time, our visitors are interested in classical forms of events - lectures and excursions, big events where are many speakers, such as marathons, and new forms of educational activities such as art mediations. We are developing programs for those who already know something, we share knowledge with them. Most of them attend lectures; this is a very big part of our work, since all the activities of the Youth Center are not aimed at classical art. Lectorium, for example, are more classical, and we specialize in modern practices, on contemporary art, on the dialogue of classical and modern art. We are also trying to apply art mediation at exhibitions of classical art. Art mediation allows to interact with the public, we try to turn people into discussion about a particular work of art.

Are there any changes in visiting The Youth Center by young people under 25? If so, what do you think, what is the reason?

Now in May we have poor attendance, I think this is because of the end of the year, it is harder to catch them at this time.. A lot of people come at the beginning of the year, in December less, in January young people come again. After some programs of modern art, the guys start going to other events. Many want to get into the student club.

But, if we talk about trends, it seems to me that there weren't any critical differences in attendance of the Youth Center. We always have a quite stable number of visitors. There are those who are no longer students, but still continue to come.

What advertising tools and channels are used?

These are mostly social networks. When we need to collect a large number of visitors, we write press releases to various publications. We publish news in Sobaka.ru, Bumaga, Afisha. But the response from these channels is not really significant. Most of all, young people are attracted through VKontakte, there are many subscribers, we try to use other social networks, but VKontakte is the most convenient one. Young people also like Youtube, it started being popular recently.

What is most important when working with young people?

Since we have a very young team, this creates a certain attitude. Visitors come to us, they see young people, it helps them to feel more relaxed, on a par with us. But it is important for us to become not directly friends for them, we need discipline, we need to show a certain level of balance between professionalism and a natural, relaxed atmosphere. We attract the staff of the State Hermitage, who hold seminars, lecture classes, regular excursions. There are lovers of new practices and lovers of the classics. For generation Z, it is important to become part of a close community, to see that the museum is not limited to an art gallery. For example, recently, we organized a visit to the exhibition the day before the opening, accompanied by an artist for the Student Club. They really like this type of communication.

Expert 6

Tatiana Haritonova

Researcher of the department "General Staff"

Please tell us what is your role in the State Hermitage Museum?

I am engaged in various studies of the museum audience, including the research on young people in the State Hermiatge Museum. There are different research methods that I use: questionnaires, surveys, observations, interviews and psychodiagnostic methods. Some techniques I make by myself.

What is the average age of people which more often visit the Hermitage?

These are young people from 18 to 35 years old who come to the General Staff Building. Usually our main visitor there, but it still depends on temporary exhibitions. The Winter Palace is mostly an adult generation, but young people also come there.

Please, describe a typical young visitor to the Hermitage.

I would divide them into two groups - schoolchildren and students. These groups have slightly different interests. Schoolchildren mostly come with their parents, sometimes with friends, the second group comes with friends, companies, these are couples, and, of course, more girls than boys. If we have an exhibition of contemporary art, then more people come to us with the degree in arts and humanities. If this is an exhibition about design, fashion, then we can see those who also have a related specialty, it is clearly visible. If this is a traditional exhibition, then most visitors will have a technical education.

What motivates this generation to come to the museum?

I conducted a study of the social attitudes of young people, and when I asked people they came to the General Staff Building, they answered: “every self-respecting person should visit this place”, “I came here with a company” “I came to have fun.” This generation has very contradictory attitude toward the museum. Some of them come, because “it is necessary”, and the other half - to get pleasure. Some people come because they have to tell everyone what is happening in the museum, because today visiting museum is trendy.

Which formats are the most popular?

They like temporary exhibitions, especially contemporary art. The activities of the Youth Center are especially popular, there are a large number of young people. Classical art is also not forgotten, especially among young people with a certain education.

Why do you think young people like modern art so much?

Many young people have a high aesthetic need, and this need is not fully satisfied. All young people have problems with the evaluation of contemporary art. How to evaluate contemporary art? What should be the aesthetic criterion? I identified one interesting thing: if we talk about associations that cause works of art in young people, and if they are negative, they are attributed to the museum. Reluctance to take a score for the owl art. Young people like modern art, but they cannot appreciate it, they evaluate themselves in it, not the museum.

What motivates generation Z to come to the museum?

There are two criteria here. The first is an absolutely conscious desire and the second is unconscious. If we are talking about the conscious one, then this is a social desire, most often it is social approval. They want to confirm the status of a modern, educated person. And others come for their own contentment. They are often attracted by the psychological atmosphere of the museum. This includes many factors: professionalism and friendliness of staff, architecture, interior space, service, exhibitions. Those who come as a whole to see the General Staff Building, those who are attracted by the psychological atmosphere, and those who come to specific exhibitions, this is emotional involvement.

What promotion channels are the most popular among young people?

A big role is played by information from social networks. If earlier it was word of mouth, now almost all young people find everything on the Internet, and half of them on social networks. There are still online newspapers - Paper, Poster. Young also takes information from there. Young people often choose VKontakte.

Is there any seasonality in visits?

Personally, I do not see seasonality, in winter more young people walk from St. Petersburg, and in summer from other cities.

Has there been any changes in young people visits in recent years?

There are always more young people in the General Staff Building, but if there was no big event, the people in general are not very many.

What do you think is most important when working with young people?

We need to speak the same language with them, but the problem is that the museum is fa quite official place. Generation Z has a clip thinking, they like photos, the visual, they have fast switching of attention. They will not want to read large texts. In order for them to return to us, we must build good relations with them. They need a personal approach and what the results which they will receive after the visit. It is important for us to show that we can propose to them something that they will not get anywhere else.

Alexey Roshin

Expert 7

The head of Sector of Sociological Research

Please, tell what the State Hermitage Museum's Sector of Sociological Research does.

The Hermitage's Sector of Sociological Research regularly conducts applied sociological research according to the requests of the Directorate and various departments of the museum. The Sector's of Sociological Research main goal is to study the factors that determine the effective interaction of the State Hermitage with the public.

What are your responsibilities?

The duties of the Sector's of Sociological Research staff include the provision of a set of activities necessary for conducting sociological research (preparing programs, developing research methods, collecting empirical materials, analyzing results, writing reports).

People of what age more often come to the State Hermitage Museum?

Most often to the Hermitage come young people of 14-34 years old.

Please, describe the visitors of the Hermitage generation Z (14-24 years). What kind of people are they? Is it possible to divide them into groups according to any characteristics (age / interests / character)?

The proportion of visitors aged 14-24 years during weekdays hours is 40-45%, and on Wednesdays and on Fridays from 6 to 9 pm, 45-55%. This is just a stereotype that young people do not visit museums. In fact, they are grateful visitors. They also are very different: some of the are engaged in art themselves, other just want to know more about it. Girls consistently visit the museum more often than boys. Many of young people come with friends or in a couple.

What motivates them to come to the museum?

As I know, the most powerful motivators for attending events are the professionalism of lecturers, interesting topics of educational courses, the coherence of the exposition (you can listen to a lecture about the artist and after that look at his paintings) and strong museum brand.

What types of Hermitage events are most often attended by young people aged 14-24?

Youth Center events. There are a lot of people on intellectual marathons. Young people very actively visit exhibitions of modern art. Art mediations become a popular format, however this activity is for a small amount of people.

Is there a seasonality in the attendance of the museum and events by young people under 24?

According to personal observations, there are fewer young people during the winter and spring months (December - early January and April-May). In the summer, local youths leave, but nonresident arrive.

Are there any changes in attendance of museum events by young people under 24?

It seems to me that in recent three years young people began to come more. With the advent of the General Staff Building, the image of the museum changed, it became more modern, and, more importantly, close to visitors. In the Winter Palace, it is still quite complicated, because there are crowds of tourists, and the work of the security service and museum attendants is correspondingly more intense. The space in the General Staff is also very photogenic. In the Winter Palace, with no doubt, too, but it is much harder to take a good photo there, again, because of the people flow.

Does the sector explore channels to attract young people to the museum (social networks, outdoor advertising, word of mouth)?

We didn't do any special investigation, but I generally know that social networks for young people are the main channel of news and engagement. VKontakte is the main social network in St. Petersburg. And in the Hermitage, it works well, both the main official profile and one of the Youth Center. The Instagram in the city is also used intensively, but it seems to me that this is not our main network, although it works well as a word of mouth. And young people come for visual content from social networks.

What do you think is most important when working with a youth audience?

Frequent events and progress! Now there are a lot of places where you can spend your free time, the museum needs to compete with them all. It is not an option for a museum to become simpler, and it means that we need to offer events that cannot be missed. The visual component is also important, young people now have clip thinking. This is neither good nor bad - so it is! To attract them to something long like a lecture or exhibition, you need to write briefly and vivid about it. And make a colorful and stylish picture. Besides the educational materials, we need to offer them something that can be put in Instagram and be advised to friends. Contemporary young audience loves with its eyes!