Yesterday (15.01.98) I went to visit the Romanov Jewel exhibit in Memphis. I noticed something odd. Here they have something like 26 million dollars worth of irreplacible jewelry and artwork, and security guards you could threaten with a microwave. (IE: "Stand back old timer or I'll nuke the burrito and kiss your pacemaker goodbye!" esoteric, I know, but funny in a strange way) Now they weren't ALL old geezers... there was the 7 foot tall lanky black guy and the one korean guard who seemed to be in charge but that's just 2 guys out of 15 or so.
I think they were just trying to tempt me. It was interesting the way the jewels were incased in various display safes around which, it would appear, the exhibit had been built. I wondered if they wheeled them out of their little cubby-holes and stored them in a more secure vault each night
It was an interesting exhibit. Not so much for the actual exhibit but for the fact that I would look at the paintings and realize HEY! I've been in that room. It was more like a trip down memory lane than anything else... The movie Anastasia did the same thing, though they mixed palaces and screwed up locations in the cartoon...