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International Volunteers Day
in the State Hermitage On 4 December 2006, International Volunteers Day was festively celebrated in the State Hermitage. This holiday has become a tradition in the museum and is being marked for the fourth time. The event began in the Hermitage Theatre with a word of greetings from Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky. Then the holiday guests spoke and outstanding volunteers with their 2006 projects were given honorary certificates and commemorative presents. This year, for the first time, many of the projects of the Volunteer Service were devoted to saving monuments of cultural heritage that were included in the State Hermitage program and in the future plans for 2007. . These were such projects as investigation and conservation of monuments in Ingermanlandia, among them the legendary Nienshants in the Okhta River estuary, and the large and multifaceted Ropsha project to save a tsarist country estate and create there a children's cultural center and Christmas Tree Museum, educational programs devoted to the 'White Rose' - Empress Alexandra Fedorovna (the wife of Nicholas I) and a whole program of festive events in Ropsha scheduled around 13 January - the 'Ropsha Dessert Table.' This is a very tasty project: during the winter holidays, schoolchildren of the city and surrounding oblast will run 'spice cake ateliers' where the participants not only learn how to bake spice-cakes but can, with their own hands, create a model of the Ropsha country estate from sweets. More than 100 volunteers, among them persons of various ages, professions and nationalities, perform work in the most varied areas and help all the departments of the State Hermitage by providing systematic research requiring special skills and by organizing concerts and special programs. All the projects in which volunteers take part have in common the very noble and important task of the day - to preserve the world's cultural heritage. Background information: the resolution creating an international volunteers day was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December, 1985 (Resolution N 40/212). The year the holiday will be celebrated for the 21st time. Volunteer Service of the State Hermitage |
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Copyright
© 2006 State Hermitage Museum |
