On 17 February 2015, at the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre, the State Hermitage Museum and Samsung Electronics presented new restoration projects and plans to upgrade equipment used at the museum complex.
The press conference was opened by Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum. Mr. JaeKun Kim, Head of the representative office, greeted the audience on behalf of Samsung Electronics. Sergey Pevnev, Director of Corporate Relations at Samsung Electronics, spoke about the cooperation program Communication of Times - Communication of Technologies that concerns joint restoration projects. V.A. Gradov, Head of the Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Furniture, presented a new draft program for restoration of a large mechanical bureau, known as the Apollo Bureau, which was made at the workshop of David Roentgen, Germany.
This large mechanical bureau was made in Neuwied at the workshop of the famous German furniture maker and brought to St. Petersburg before 1 March 1784. It had been especially manufactured to demonstrate the highest level of skill of its creators. This masterpiece of furniture art sometimes seemed less like a writing desk and more like a mechanical toy. It included a number of mechanisms which, as if by magic, could open a reading stand, swap locations of smaller cabinets, open flaps and drawers as well as turn on music recorded on rollers. The mechanisms were created by Roentgen in collaboration with a mechanic, Peter Kinzing, and a composer, Johann Well. Judging by the conserved documents and memoirs of the contemporaries, the bureau certainly impressed the Russian audience who hadn’t seen anything similar to it before. Roentgen reached the objective of creating something that would be enjoyed by the Russian audience and became a major supplier of furniture for Catherine II and the Russian Court for the next decade.
During the current year, Samsung Electronics plans to provide the State Hermitage Museum with innovative equipment of the 2015 line and is currently considering projects intended to upgrade the equipment present in the main museum complex and the General Staff Building.
Cooperation of the State Hermitage Museum and Samsung began in 1997. A program of technical support of educational, scientific and tour activities at the Museum was implemented during the time of collaboration. Within the framework of the Communication of Times - Communication of Technologies program, the company contributes to the restoration of the monuments of art. Samsung helped to restore unique mechanisms, including a large table clock with organ manufactured by English master Eardley Norton in 1792 that belonged to Catherine II; a table clock with musical mechanism made by James Cox in 1760; a cabinet musical clock made at the Roentgen-Kinzing workshop in Germany in the 1780’s and a Singing Bird Cage with clock made by Swiss master Pierre Jaquet Droz in the 1790’s.
Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum: “Over the years, Samsung has been a very reliable technology partner and we are very pleased to continue our partnership in 2015. These multiannual projects are a great example of a successful partnership between business and cultural institutions. Our joint work is aimed at preserving the unique museum relics, while innovative Samsung technologies provide the visitors with an opportunity to interact with the Museum exhibition and use interactive means to learn more about art in general”.
Mr. JaeKun Kim, Head of the Samsung Electronics representative office in the Northwest Region: “Participation in the projects of the State Hermitage Museum is a great honor for Samsung Electronics. We are proud to be able to support one of the world’s major art museums for nearly two decades by equipping its exhibition halls with the latest digital technologies for educational, scientific and tour purposes. We take especial pride in our contribution to the restoration of unique mechanisms created in the XVIII-XIX centuries, as both Samsung and the State Hermitage Museum establish a connection between the technical masterpieces of the past and cutting-edge technology of the present”.

News source: The State Hermitage Museum
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