The Presidential Library and the Museum-Reserve "Staraya Ladoga" preserve Russia’s cultural heritage

Gradually disappearing unique frescoes of the XII century of the Church of St. George in Staraya Ladoga will not be lost for future generations. It is now possible thanks to the cooperation between the Presidential Library and the Staraya Ladoga Museum-Reserve. The results of the four-year interaction have been discussed by representatives of both sides at a round table devoted to the present and future joint projects.

Preservation of Russia's cultural and historical heritage is the direction that unites organizations that concluded a cooperation agreement in March 2014. However, joint work in this direction began even earlier: in July 2013 in Staraya Ladoga the cultural and educational action of the Presidential Library "Revival of the ancient capital of Russia on the first color photos" took place. Within the framework of the event, the staff of the museum-reserve received digitized pictures of the pioneer of Russian color photography Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky of the early XX century from the library's collections. Today they are of great historical and cultural value. Photographs depicting the rarest fresco painting of the temples of Staraya Ladoga, helped restorers to restore its lost fragments with religious exactitude.     

Another common initiative of the Presidential Library and the museum-reserve is the documentary trilogy about Staraya Ladoga. The first film describes the birth of statehood on the Russian land, its archaeological excavations, which open new pages of Russian history. Film "Rescues frescoes of Staraya Ladoga. Church of the XII century" Introduces the viewer to the history of the fund of the Staraya Ladoga Museum, where they collect and study collections of fragments of frescoes and samples of building materials of six ancient stone churches.

Special focus is on the Church of St. George, a monument of the world medieval culture, on the walls of which there is a unique painting. In 2018, the temple is temporarily closed to visit, but to remotely visit it, learn its history, consider the surviving drawings can be possible thanks to the authors of the film "Rescued frescoes of Staraya Ladoga. Church of St. George". The documentary trilogy about the first capital of Russia is fully presented publicly on the Presidential Library portal. Here you can see the detailed catalog "Fragments of the frescoes of St. George's Church in the collection of the Staraya Ladoga Museum-Reserve". Its author, a leading researcher of the Staraya Ladoga Museum-Reserve, Boris Vasiliev, devoted many years to the study of the ancient painting.  

The history of Staraya Ladoga and its architectural monuments are presented in numerous materials from the Presidential Library collections. In particular, the collection "Leningrad Region: Pages of History" includes scientific publications of the late XIX - early XX centuries, such as the jubilee edition of the "Staraya Ladoga" of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society (1896) with drawings and a technical description of the famous architect and archaeologist V. V. Suslova; four-volume work of Catherine Nelidova "Rus’ in its capitals". In the first volume, which was published in 1912 and dedicated to Staraya Ladoga, Nelidova presented a detailed excursion into the history of the settlement, beginning with the description of the “Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks”, legends of the Volkhov River and legends of foreign writers about Ladoga, ending with the participation of Ladoga in the wars of Novgorodians with Swedes, Livonian Germans and Finnish tribes, the era of Peter the Great and archaeological excavations in Staraya Ladoga.

In the primary collection "Territory of Russia" in the section "Staraya Ladoga in Photographs" is presented a series of pictures "Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. Staraya Ladoga - the first capital of Rus’" - these are photos with findings from excavations, as well as excavations themselves, types of churches, monasteries, Ladoga fortress.

Of considerable interest are archive materials from the Presidential Library's collections: for example, a copy of Peter the Great's decree on the production of the census in Staraya and New Ladoga of 1722, the case concerning the preservation of the 1887 Rurikov fortress, located in Staraya Ladoga, and many others.

The Presidential Library specialists and the Staraya Ladoga Museum-Reserve not only discussed the productive results of the four-year cooperation, but also outlined future projects. Among them, the creation of a separate collection on Staraya Ladoga on the portal of the Presidential Library, the digitization of museum items and significant archaeological finds, the creation of a cycle of audio recordings with stories about archaeological excavations of museum staff and scientists and archeologists, the attraction of specialists from Staraya Ladoga to the formation of digital collections dedicated to the Old Russian statehood, and much more.