The new general director of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg will be Alla Manilova, who previously held the posts of state secretary and deputy minister in the Russian Ministry of Culture. This was reported by Interfax with reference to the press service of the department. The former general director of the Russian Museum, Vladimir Gusev, became president of the same institution in February.
Alla Manilova has worked as Deputy Minister of Culture since 2012, and before that she worked in the administration of St. Petersburg. Novaya Gazeta's sources at the Russian Museum call Manilova's candidacy "the worst possible" because she has neither an art history education nor museum work experience. “Who doesn’t remember this flurry of consumer entertainment that covered St. Petersburg during her time,” one of the newspaper’s interlocutors said, recalling the official’s nickname – “holiday woman”.
Manilova graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Leningrad State University and has been working as a journalist since the 1980s. In 2003, while holding the post of editor-in-chief of the Nevskoe Vremya newspaper at that time, she entered the campaign headquarters of Valentina Matvienko, where she was engaged in campaigning. After Matvienko became the governor of St. Petersburg, Manilova headed the Committee for Press and Interaction with the Media of the city. In 2008, she received the position of lieutenant governor and began to oversee the areas of culture, education and the media.
During this period, Manilova initiated the creation of the "International Center for Festivals and Holidays" (ICFP), which was headed by her friend Marina Fokina, who previously led the television company "Petersburg – Channel Five". Manilova once headed the board of directors of the same television company. It is noteworthy that the city owned 51% of the MCFP, and the rest belonged to the City Center for Holidays and Festivals CJSC, which was also led by Fomina (owned by the Cypriot offshore CJSC). ICFP regularly won city competitions for holding holidays. In 2010 alone, the company received 340.9 million rubles from the budget.
After Manilova moved to Moscow and began working at the Ministry of Culture, the International Center for Festivals and Holidays began to receive contracts from the ministry.