The Presidential Library and the Book Chapel teamed up for a joint project with schoolchildren

In the course of multimedia educational projects of the Presidential Library for eighth-graders of school № 163 of the Central District of St. Petersburg, an educative tour on the subject “Russian Language”, which deepens school knowledge about native language, was held. In the building on Senate Square, 3 schoolchildren first learned about unique Russian Language collection in the multimedia room, and then in the electronic reading room they performed the proposed tasks, answered questions regarding the collection, and tested their knowledge. Then the lesson was held within the walls of the Book Chapel. This first visit of young readers of the Presidential Library to the Book Chapel opens up an impressive prospect for the cooperation between the two institutions focusing on the book and Russian language as the state language.

“The original meaning of the word "chapel" is a palace church in a castle or a palace, intended for a deeply personal conversation with God", - explains the guide Vladislav Frantov to schoolchildren. The creators of the Book Chapel wanted to erect the temple of the book, to make this public space "the place of immersion of the human spirit and mind in the Great Sacrament of Reading". The Book Chapel showcases over 5,000 volumes of carefully selected reprint books, facsimile albums and geographical atlases of the 16th - early 20th centuries, valuable from a scientific and artistic point of view. Among the iconic editions of pre-revolutionary Russia are complete reprint sets of the Niva and Ogonyok magazines, works on national and foreign history, as well as books on art.

In the format of casual communication the moderator of the Gothic, Medieval and other chapel halls, showed schoolchildren the Atlas of the starry sky, commented on the “Boldino Manuscripts”, where Pushkin’s handwriting and his drawings in the margins and even the trace left by the tea cup on paper.

Employees of the Book Chapel consider the book as a bearer of the spiritual principle, requiring special treatment. Here they like to quote the words of Jorge Luis Borges: “I have always imagined Paradise with something like a library ...”

The cooperation between the Presidential Library and the Book Chapel proposes not only to exchange target audiences, but also to invite specialists from a new type of institution to participate in video lectures, conferences and presentations, which are held by the library on Senate Square, 3.