ST. PETERSBURG, October 26. /TASS/. The State Hermitage Museum’s clock is ticking again after its hands stood still 100 years ago right when the Interim Government’s arrest in 1917 occurred, and has not been wound since then in memory of the October Revolution events.
"The clock has been wound, and it started working today," the museum’s press service confirmed to TASS on Thursday.
Hermitage Director General Mikhail Piotrovsky declared the intention to wind the watch in the Winter Palace’s Small Dining Room on October 26, ahead of the exhibition devoted to the 100th anniversary of the revolution on Wednesday.
The mantle clock hands in the Small (White) Dining Room stopped at 2:10 am when the Interim Government ministers were arrested in the small hours of October 26, 1917, in the Winter Palace. This clock was not wound in Soviet times, and the tradition lingered on: its hands stood still pointing to that time for over a century.
There are about 50 old clocks in the Hermitage halls. Experts from the Hermitage laboratory for scientific restoration of clocks and musical mechanisms put almost all of them into operation over the last few years.
The Hermitage prepared an extensive event program dubbed "The Assault on the Winter Palace" for the 100th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution that unites the issue of relations between the museum and the authorities, as well as its connection to the revolutionary events.