The Minister of Culture informs that representatives of Ogre Municipality and Ogre Museum of History and Art have been invited to the meeting of the Council of Museums.
The ombudsman Juris Jansons also says that he paid attention to the closure of the Ogre Museum and that the office of the ombudsman is currently working on the analysis and evaluation of the situation.
As the ombudsman says on social networks, the institution will be able to come up with a detailed opinion after analyzing the situation.
It has already been reported that on January 2 of this year, the reorganization of the museums of the Ogre region began, which was foreseen by the council’s decision of December 22, 2022.
The employees of the museum themselves believe that they are being repressed because they opposed the plan of Ogre Mayor Egils Helmanis (NA), a member of Puntulis’s party, to hold an exhibition of the porcelain of the sanctioned Russian oligarch Pyotr Aven from his private collection.
The municipality of Ogre states that as a result of the administrative territorial reform in the new Ogre county, there are several municipal museums – Ogre History and Art Museum, Andreja Pumpuras Lielvārde Museum and municipal institutions that carry out museum functions, namely Birzgale Museum “Rūķi”, Ķegum County Museum and Cultural Heritage center “Tīnūžu muiža”.
At the council meeting last December, deputy executive director Dana Bārbale informed that not all museums are accredited, but the first part of Article 9 of the Museum Law stipulates that the municipal museum must be accredited no earlier than three and no later than five years after its foundation.
Bārbale pointed out that it is useful to start the reorganization of municipal museums and municipal institutions that implement museum functions in the municipality of Ogre county in order to create a unified system of administration, accreditation and management of museum functions in the new county and to ensure efficient use of resources.
The aim of the reorganization is to promote the improvement of the operation of the museums in Ogre region and to coordinate their development, regardless of their status, to promote the preservation and expansion of museum collections, to promote the education of museum staff, to collect and popularize the circulation of the cultural and historical heritage accumulated in museums in society.
The report on the reorganization of the Ogre museums must be prepared by June 1, 2023, while the proposals on the reorganization must be submitted to the Ogre County Council for consideration at the June 2023 meeting.
Chairman of the Ogre County Council, Helmanis, calling on his colleagues to support the prepared draft decision, stated that the reorganization of Ogre County museums, by arranging their structure, will also promote the availability of museum rooms and exhibitions in the county’s parishes, without interrupting their work if the manager is on vacation or needs to be replaced for other reasons , will also improve the competence of managers.
On December 28 of last year, Helmanis informed the Ogre Museum of History and Art that from February 1 to 23, it will have to provide an exhibition of the porcelain of the sanctioned Russian oligarch Pyotr Aven from his private collection.
After the objections of the museum and public condemnation for showing the private collection of a person subject to sanctions in wartime, Helmanis was forced to abandon the porcelain exhibition. However, as the head of the county and the chairman of the cultural commission, he has not coordinated this year’s exhibition plan at the Ogre Museum of History and Art, the previously planned salary increase for museum employees has also been withheld, and any public communication about the operation of the museum accredited last year has been denied, as well as previously planned events have been postponed. events from the museum premises to other places.
