Cultural People: Projects to Enhance the Intellectual and Cultural Level of Education

4 September 2019

Cultural People: Projects to Enhance the Intellectual and Cultural Level of Education

KEY CONCLUSIONS

Russia is among leaders in liberal arts education

“Russia belongs to the leading countries, actual leaders in liberal arts education. Our conservatories normally rank among the best in the world. Our artistic educational institutions, our artistic institutions are always the top ones,” Olga Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

Education becomes the primary function of cultural institutions

“People need more than just to come to a museum and see something on the walls. <…> Educational projects, learning facilitation become primary both in Russia and in the rest of the world. A museum cannot be successful if its educational programmes are boring and do not embrace the widest range of people possible,” Zelfira Tregulova, General Director, The State Tretyakov Gallery.

Supporting cultural projects results in a positive social effect

“Over the last two years, we have supported a thousand projects, which equals about 3 billion, and this segment is on the rise,” Innokentiy Dementyev, Deputy General Director, Presidential Grants Foundation.

“Rostec State Corporation supports a large number of federal and regional social projects. <…> The project of Oktava creative industrial cluster opened in 2017. It is an interesting project of public-private partnership. <…> In this cluster we work with both the content and the context. The venue has a lot of places: it is the first Machinery Museum in Russia that uses analogue forms and multimedia content to basically tell the whole history of industry,” Olga Pivenko, Director for Special Commissions, Rostec.

“If you want to see how the union of culture and business can change the world, change Russia, change territories, just go one day to the town of Vyksa in Nizhny Novgorod Region that has been hosting the Art-Ovrag festival for many years now. So, over the eight years of the project it is not just the new art pieces that appeared there – those you can find in many places, but crime rate went down, average age of locals has grown and out-migration has practically stopped,” Vadim Kovalev, First Deputy Executive Director, Russian Managers Association.

PROBLEMS

Uneven spatial development in terms of culture

“We have an important objective under national projects. Unfortunately, for a long a time we have only been developing two centres – Moscow and St. Petersburg. Our current objective is to change the geography of important cultural centres. And the fact that such centres appear here in Vladivostok, in Sebastopol, in Kaliningrad, in Kemerovo and become a valuable addition to the ones that exist in the European part of Russia, in Siberia – in Novosibirsk, in Yekaterinburg, in Samara, in Nizhny Novgorod, etc. – is great. They will become our growth points,” Olga Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

Liberal arts education needs to be more accessible

“Our objective is to make liberal arts education more accessible for children and for young people. <…> Theatres and museums now open educational programmes for pre-schoolers and school students,” Olga Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

“We have faced the situation when learning materials and musical instruments have not been procured to remote areas since the 80s. The Culture national project has 9 billion roubles allocated for this, including 8.28 billion being federal money,” Pavel Stepanov, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation.

SOLUTIONS

Improving training methods in culture

“It is very important to train teachers, pay attention to them and help them grow professionally. <…> As of today, based on the lifelong education principle we plan to create 15 centres of lifelong education by 2024 and upgrade skills of 200 thousand teachers from all Russian regions,” Pavel Stepanov, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation.

“We have developed certain know-how’s that we are ready to share. That is why a year ago we have signed an agreement with the School of History at Moscow State University that we will develop a special master’s programme for two years. Thus, we tell them about new professions that appeared in museums that deal with advanced inventory, preservation, multimedia technologies, marketing and PR, and fundraising, and we do it in a very exciting way,” Zelfira Tregulova, General Director, The State Tretyakov Gallery.

Government support for culture

“I would like to tell you about the support, the investments that originate from the Presidential Grants for the Civil Society Foundation. It is a big support for our project. <…> Yakut Biennale of Contemporary Art. <…> This biennale was created to brighten up the urban environment. <…> Indeed, this was a big impetus for the volunteer movement, and a beautiful art piece was installed in Yakutsk vicinity,” Asya Gabysheva, Development Fund Founder, National Art Museum of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

“If we want to talk – and we were using the right words to talk – about the volume, about involving places other than the capitals, we need help form the government or private companies, sponsors. But this is a different story. In order to avoid endless begging for money for an event, because events must be popular and the audience votes through buying tickets, and when this motivation to win over the audience and motivation to help your event become sold out is lost, we report through the show and not through its quality. I believe it is wrong,” Ilya Averbukh, Russian Figure Skater, Honored Master of Sports; Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Ilya Averbukh Production Company.

Making culture popular

“You have such a rich history of culture! Our culture in the US is only 200 years old, but your history is different, that is why you need to convey it through people, through their hearts. You have so much: profound conflicts and breathtaking romantic stories and social conflicts,” Martha De Laurentiis, Producer of Film and Television; President, De Laurentiis Company.

For more information, visit the Roscongress Foundation's Information and Analytical System at roscongress.org/en.

Cultural People: Projects to Enhance the Intellectual and Cultural Level of Education

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