Tallinn's Kadriorg Museum has been named Employer of the Year for Old Soviet Hags by the International Association of Art Museums. Kadriorg also finished second in the category of Most Self-righteous Coat Attendants. "We're of course very proud of this honor," said museum director Viviann Vihane. "We work hard every day to earn the title." Vihane credits her number of overly grumpy Soviet-era employees to her recruitment program. "I haunt bus- and rail stations and other like venues looking for disgruntled sixty-year-olds who work as bathroom attendants. I find these often have the prerequisite amount of hate inside them to qualify for work at Kadriorg."Vihane noted that all her employees are trained in "giving art lovers the evil eye" and undergo an intense "suspicious state of mind" orientation session where they learn to enlarge the chips on their shoulders. "All our workers are committed to making the visitor feel that he or she is lower than grass," boasted Vihane. "And you can't find that just anywhere, certainly not at KUMU."
Oh, so true. So true! They follow you around like you're a criminal there. Those people are just mean! Well done!
ReplyDeleteYou failed to mention the Vilnius Picture Gallery was closely beaten into second place, while a joint third prize went to the ¨Museums of Local Lore¨ in every provincial town in the Baltic States.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been to the Vilnius Picture Gallery but visited that Kadriorg place once (I live in Riga). Kadriorg didn't have much of a collection really--mostly portraits of old Baltic German nobles and other stuff you can find in an antique store if you want it bad enough. It's one of those museums you wander through and are more impressed by the building than what they've got on the walls. You start to look around and dream about where you'd put your furniture if you lived there.
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