NEMO Annual meeting 2005, Manchester
Report from Russia
By Elena Petrova
Issues connected with changes in legislation and reforms of budget institutions (mentioned at the previous NEMO meetings) still remain of primary importance for Russian museums. We were thinking of what can come out of these reforms for a couple years. Now the process of introducing the new principles of managing and financing budget institutions (including museums) begins.
Therefore, the Association of museum professionals included active participation in political life in the list of its aims and tasks; and it was declared at the last board meeting of the Association.
From now on, more will depend on local governments, and museums want to see in those governments people who will protect their interests. Museum professionals take part in elections. Some of our museum’s staff also took part in the last elections (late October), some were successful; other museums did the same. But there are no statistic data so far, the elections took place less than a month ago.
Another important aspect in the activities of the Association is connected with regional development on the basis of cultural recourses. (It is only logical, as our Association unites provincial museums. And in Russia, unlike in Europe, standards of living in the provinces differ greatly from the capitals).
The only example we can now talk about is the Yasnaya Polyana Agreement between the Tolstoy Museum, the nearby chemical enterprise and the local government. But there are rather a lot of museums in the Association that are interested in the idea, especially museum-reserves, having much in common with Yasnaya Polyana. On the other hand, there are those who think this pattern of partnership is a unique experience of the Tolstoy Museum and it won’t work for others.
This very aspect – the role of cultural resources in sustainable regional development – became the major one in our partnership project with Weimar and Stratford-upon-Avon; other aspects are education and tourism. The project received the EU grant. In future, it is expected to widen this “triangle”, involving more museums of the same kind into cooperation.
Quite recently (September – October) the Association held a series of three seminars on museums’ exhibition activities “Museum Values: interpretation and social realization”. They were held in Kaliningrad, in Yasnaya Polyana and in Volgograd, and they were organized in cooperation with the British Council, the non-commercial partnership “Museum and Promotion” and the international foundation “Leo Tolstoy’s Heritage”. The seminars were planned as a prelude to a new international partnership program, whose purpose is to support creative initiatives in museums’ exhibition activities. The program of the seminars was based on the analysis of British and Russian museums’ rich experience. The program of each seminar was based on lectures by Barbara Woroncow (Great Britain), expert advisor for UNESCO, board member of ICOM.
The Association continues publishing The AMR Bulletin (a monthly paper) and the magazine The World and Museum. Its last issue was devoted to the museums of the Republic of Tatarstan and it commemorates one-thousand-year anniversary of Kazan – capital of Tatarstan.