The Presidential Library and Artek launched new educational project

The Presidential Library and the “Artek” International Children’s Center launched a series of mutual video lectures. These lessons will cover the most important events in the history of Russia and the Crimea. This educational project evolved according the cooperation agreement, which was signed by the institutions on June 13, 2017. An objective of this initiative is assuring ethical and patriotic education of young people. The most prominent scientists in the field of history will contribute into the project speaking appearances.

The first public video lecturing was held today, October 24, 2017. It was dedicated to the epoch of the reign of the Empress Catherine II. This year marks 255 years since the beginning of her reign. School students of St. Petersburg and Crimea learned about the reformation endeavors of the empress. The Presidential Library has a large number of rare materials on the subject of the lesson. For instance, there is a text of the manifesto of Catherine II on the accession of Crimea to Russia in 1783. A digital copy of the document is presented in Volume 21 of the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire.

Also, there is an extensive amount of rare materials about the “Artek” International Children’s Center in the Presidential Library. Among them are the digital copies of postcards with pre-war Artek views of 1929—1938. Anyone can make his own impression about the All-Union Recreation Center and Health Resort for Young Pioneers. On the postcards — a general view of the all buried in verdure camp, a new sanatorium building, with playing on its porch children. Photographs of a bathing in the Black Sea, games with waves, picking up the grapes give some idea of the happy and exiting life in the camp, the travel to which was then and still remains a reward for special achievements.

The cycle of public video lecturing is the beginning of active cooperation between the Presidential Library and the “Artek” International Children’s Center. In the future there will be joint informational and methodical webinars, events within the framework of “Russia in the electronic world” interactive Olympiad for school students in history, social studies and the Russian language, and much more.

The Presidential Library has been developing partnerships with the Crimea for several years. On April 26, 2016, the General Director of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin and the head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksenov signed an agreement on cooperation. Currently, the electronic reading rooms of the Presidential Library are already opened and successfully functioning in Sevastopol in the Naval Library named after M. P. Lazarev, in the Sevastopol Presidential Cadet School, the Black Sea Naval High the Red Star Order School named after P. S. Nakhimov. The regional access center to the information resources of the Presidential Library is opened in Simferopol on the basis of the Crimean Republican Universal Scientific Library named after I. Y. Franko. Crimean high school students regularly take part in the research, educational and cultural projects of the library. Working seminars were organized in the Black Sea area to introduce staff employees of the educational institutions to the system and working experience of the Presidential Library, as well as to future outlook of cooperation.