Publications
This July the 125th birthday of Marc Chagall will be celebrated. Now the name of this artist belongs to the world, but in those days only Lord knew that a great painter was born in the land of Belarus. “My mother said that on the hour of my birth a huge fire broke out in a small house at the road behind the prison. The city was in flames and especially the quarter of poor Jews… Yet the house near the road in Peskovatiki survived the fire and soon after that my father sold it,” recollected Chagall in My Life. The artist forever left Vitebsk in 1920. At first he lived in Moscow where he collaborated with the Jewish Chamber...
On June 4 the opening ceremony of the First All-Russian Congress of Russian Language and Literature Teachers was held. More than 800 secondary school teachers from 73 regions of Russia along with teachers from Serbia, post-Soviet space and other places arrived in Moscow.The Russkiy Mir Foundation acted as General Partner of the convention.Delivering his welcome address at the opening ceremony, Russian education and science minister Dmitry Livanov outlined a number of issues that are particularly topical for the teachers’ community nowadays. Above all the minister paid attention to the fact that national education standards had been...
The official inauguration of the Year of Russia in Germany and Year of Germany in Russia 2012-13 took place on June 20. Below is an interview of Russian Ambassador to FRG, Vladimir Grinin.– What’s your assessment of relationship between Russia and Germany in the run-up to the “cross years” of our nations in 2012-2013?– Russian-German relations are multifarious, dynamic and rich. Our strategic partnership has an onward thrust and this is the bottom line. The official visit to Berlin of Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 1 gave a new impulse to our cooperation, since sustainable political discourse at the...
In mid-May work concluded on legislation regarding the new procedure for forming the Federation Council stipulating more direct election of senators. The legislation parallels the recently adopted law on the direct election of governors. Russkiy Mir Foundation Executive Director and Dean of the MSU School of Public Administration Vyacheslav Nikonov commented on the new developments in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda Radio.
– This document was published on the website of the Federation Council and presented for public discussion. We have heard that in total more than 90,000 people viewed it and of them nearly 2500 provided...
It so happens that June 28 marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the reinstitution of the position of magistrates, or justices of the peace, in Russia. Just a few days ago the Magistrate Court of Astrakhan quickly moved to apply the recently passed law on demonstrations in Moscow, issuing former mayoral candidate Oleg Shein a 20,000-rubles fine for holding an unsanctioned meeting on June 12. On that day, Russia Day, representatives of the opposition held marches in many cities throughout the country. But they were sanctioned by authorities, although Shein’s supporters simply dubbed their protest as “simply a walk along the...
Today, June 27, Russia celebrates Youth Day. In Soviet times this holiday was celebrated with much grandeur – dances in folk costumes, releasing doves and fitness parades. In modern Russia it is marked with little fanfare. Romanticism has lost its luster and the young generation always has a lot of uncomfortable questions for the elder generation. So the country is trying to let this occasion sneak by unnoticed.
This “new old” holiday was put on Russia’s calendar back in the Yeltsin era some 19 years ago. Since that time an entire generation has grown up, and it should, as Dmitry Medvedev noted in his New...
