It's not over yet

Dmitry Medvedev defended history and cultural heritage in the capital of Russian democracy

On Friday, President Dmitry Medvedev continued his journey through ancient Russian cities, which he began on Monday in Yaroslavl, and arrived in Veliky Novgorod. But if in Yaroslavl they talked about today, about prospects in foreign policy and new rules of the game on the world stage, then in Novgorod they talked about the eternal - about Russian cultural heritage.

Although here, too, the president could not completely renounce big politics. “Novgorod is a masterpiece of architecture and a masterpiece of political culture. We often turn to Western experience, forgetting our own political milestones,” he said, hinting at the Novgorod Veche as a prototype of Russian democracy.

Dmitry Medvedev visited one of the oldest Russian cities on the eve of a very remarkable date - the 1150th anniversary of its founding. In addition to the arrival of the president, which in itself is a great gift for any city, since it invariably leads to the improvement of the entire territory adjacent to the presidential route, Veliky Novgorod received a material gift for its birthday - a bell for the belfry of the St. Sophia Cathedral. The whole world collected money for the new bell, weighing two tons. We collected almost one and a half million rubles. They decided to immortalize the names of the President of Russia, Patriarch Kirill, the Novgorod governor and mayor on the bell.

“Russia is rising and being reborn after ten years of very difficult life. There are economic difficulties, but progress is irreversible,” the president said and was the first to ring the bell three times. The head of state discussed the problems of cultural heritage twice - at a meeting with employees of Novgorod cultural institutions and at a joint meeting of the presidiums of the State Council and the Presidential Council for Culture and Art.

Of course, we couldn’t ignore the topic of combating the falsification of history. This time it was not Ukraine and Poland that suffered the most, but the home-grown alternative historian, academician Anatoly Fomenko, who created the “New Chronology” theory, according to which, for example, Alexander Nevsky was a Tatar khan. In Novgorod, the name Fomenko is treated especially sensitively. After all, the academician denies the existence of ancient Russian history, and, in his opinion, the Lord of Veliky Novgorod never existed.

“A brilliant mathematician, but why does he study history,” worried the director of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, Nikolai Grinev. Dmitry Medvedev initially treated the issue with humor. “Our chess players are also involved in politics, this is normal, this is freedom,” he said.

But then the conversation returned to seriousness. “Sometimes paradoxical thinking makes sense. But there are things that should not be the subject of public, let alone political, discussion. Some European countries began to talk about the equal responsibility of the USSR and Nazi Germany for the start of the Second World War. There are things that should be an axiom - who started the war. Who won it? Who lost 27 million,” said Mr. Medvedev.

Another question that interested the president's interlocutors at both meetings was much more materialistic - it concerned the prospects of providing tax breaks to patrons of the arts. The artistic director of the Novgorod Dostoevsky Drama Theater Sergei Morozov suggested returning them. The president did not support this idea, explaining that in this case 1% of philanthropists would account for 99% of swindlers. Instead, he suggested that cultural figures themselves should more actively attract businessmen, offering to mention their names on memorial plaques and even in the names of charity objects. “Of course, there is no need to rename,” he warned the artistic director against a possible attempt to change Dostoevsky’s name to something less sonorous, but more profitable. “People are pleased, they are vain. They will bring children later,” said the president, who had just seen a bell with his own name on it. Returning to this topic at a joint meeting of the presidiums of the State Council and the Presidential Council for Culture and Arts, Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev said that he had prepared a list of the most active philanthropists for the president to submit for state awards. He also noted that the ministry has plans to change the law on patronage of the arts, and he even agreed with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin to work together on this. To which the president advised not to rely on the Ministry of Finance - it is “dealing with other issues - in particular, preparing the country’s budget,” and suggested “writing the law ourselves.” Meanwhile, the president supported the idea of ​​the famous pianist Denis Matsuev, who asked for grants for specialized music schools so that teachers would not be forced to go abroad.

The topic of financing cultural monuments became the main topic at the joint meeting of the presidiums of the State Council and the Presidential Council for Culture and the Arts. More than half of the monuments, according to the Russian President, under state protection, are in need of urgent restoration or conservation. If money is not found for them in the near future, they will simply be lost.

One of the acute problems is the delimitation of ownership of historical monuments between the federation and its subjects. For example, in Moscow, according to Mr. Avdeev, it was only 60% resolved. “The issue is probably not easy, but we have been solving it for eight years. And with this mood, we won’t solve it for another eight years,” the president said indignantly. By the way, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was not present at the meeting. But the governor of St. Petersburg, Valentina Matvienko, deserved a lot of praise. In the president's hometown, the demarcation of property rights is nearing its end, and the historical center has a "high degree of authenticity." True, the council did not mention the scandalous project for the construction of a high-rise tower by Gazprom, which distorts the historical appearance of the northern capital.

Another difficulty is the lack of legislation. “It would seem that the easiest question is the creation of a regulatory framework. It would seem that it would be easier to write laws,” the president was surprised. And he decided to push the process forward, giving the government three months to finalize all legislation on this issue.

Only the head of the Union of Cinematographers, Nikita Mikhalkov, tried to distract the president from talking about pressing matters. “As my late father said, I’m sitting on the presidium, but there’s no happiness. We live in monstrous filth, we sniff and don’t notice. We need to clean up the country,” he said. But the president did not support the director’s pathetic tone. “Nobody really wants to live in a garbage dump. But as soon as you ask the question: “Are you ready to clean up this garbage dump,” everyone washes their hands, because no one wants to be a janitor. Everyone wants to be businessmen, lawyers, economists. There are not enough appeals here, Nikita Sergeevich. And even a big program on television or otherwise implemented will not be enough. There must be some deeper things here that will be able to convey this code to what is contained in the skull,” said the head of state.

Vera SITNINA, Veliky Novgorod