The museum was launched by distinguished Lithuanian artist Antanas Zmudzinavicius who enjoyed number 13, the devil’s dozen, and always respected the characters that not always were human enemies.

Number 13 played a specific role in the life of Zmudzinavicius. His name-day was on the 13th, he met his future wife on the 13th, and his only daughter was born on the 13th. The artist said he made friends with the devils in childhood. He collected 260 exhibits (20 devil’s dozens) and decided to display the collection to the public. Zmudzinavicius said he promised to the first devil he met in Samogitija to shelter his brothers in his home and show them to people in exchange for good health and long life. The artist lived 90 years and presented his house with the museum to the city one year before passing away in 1966. But after his death devils continued to arrive and arrive from all over the world. In 1982 the house had to be expanded to accommodate all devils.

Today the museum collection numbers over three thousand exhibits of various forms and colors, with horns, tails, hooves, wooden, ceramic, metallic, and even woven on carpets. They are all gifts. Some are household items, e.g. walking-sticks, door handles, glasses, plates, and openers. Others pose for musicians, dandies or politicians. The third took on the image of donkeys, dogs or pigs. Like any evil spirit they can acquire any image. The collection is constantly growing due to new and often unexpected gifts. This year which is also the 13th the museum received a clock with a devil from South Korean musicians.

Devils occupy a major place in both Slavic and Lithuanian folklore. The latter has over five thousand fairy tales and stories related to the important character in folk conscience. Close to 400 places are named after him. Scientists say even the main Lithuanian natural site, the famous Puntukas stone, was pushed to its current place by the devil in the Ice Age. He wanted to crash with it a nearby church under construction but dropped the stone when he heard cockerel sing and thus the divine house remained intact.

In contrast to Slavic ethnography, the Lithuanian one does not always depict the devil (Velnias in Lithuanian) as a bad guy who wants to harm humans and seduce them out of the right way. He helped the spirit of ancestors (veles) maintain contact with those living. Sometimes he helped the poor and did it selflessly by showing treasures and hidden wealth to them. It is related to pagan perceptions about underground spirits that keep buried treasures and protect the poor and honest people and punish greedy and brutal. With the advent of Christianity the devils were moved to a team of evil servants of Satan. However popular conscience preserved a dual attitude to them.

In public conscience the devil was not always a bad guy who wants to harm humans and seduce them out of the right way.

Courageous girls even married them (suffice it to recall popular Lithuanian musical Devil’s Mill) and various deals were concluded with devils. They often appeared at various male parties and liked to visit village gatherings. Girls were even warned by strict mothers: if she liked a stranger dancer at a party she had to step on his foot to check whether it is a hoof. Lithuanian devils worked hard, got tired, and fell in love. Anyway, nothing human was alien to them.

Lithuania was the last in Europe to adopt Christianity and had no rich traditions of religious arts and medieval sculpture. Craftsmen expressed their religious feelings as they could. They cut saints and divine protectors from wood according to established canons. But they gave rein to their imagination in depicting devils and all types of evil force. Some characters were fearful, others were funny and the third resembled outstanding personalities. Zmudzinavicius himself experienced it as his friends-art artists liked to depict him as a good devil.

Gradually the devils acquired yet another trait in folk art. All human vice were attributed to them, mostly smoking and alcohol consumption (they invented hebon), lasciviousness, greed, and acquisitiveness. The dark forces personified by devils in modern popular conscience are thus accentuating the bright sides of life. The more devils the brighter the light.

Unfortunately, as demonology experts claim, the number of devils decreased by early XXI century, their power vanished, and Satan ousted them. Their place was occupied by people who better cope with the duties of a devil . May be it is the reason why the world of non-fearful devils who lost their power and settled down in Kaunas is visited both by adults and children of different age. The museum offers various educational programs for them which tell the history of each exhibit and describe witch parties, teach dances, magic deeds and whistling in order to call a marshland or forest devil.

Lithuanian folklore has over five thousand fairy tales and stories related to devils and close to 400 places are named after them.

However they rarely come today. Therefore, it is important to visit the museum where devils found their last shelter and where nobody can offend them any longer .

Galina Afanasyeva,

for Amber Bridge

What is Aurora Borealis festival , how did it emerge and how is it related to Aurora Karamzina?

The festival began in 2012 as a continuation of Christmas Candle Meetings project which the Litera studio has been organizing for five years jointly with ITAR-TASS bureau and bringing poets from Russia, Baltic countries and Northern Europe together. All the five years it was only enthusiasm but the project succeeded. In 2012 it was decided to change the format of Christmas Meetings into a festival and unite under its banner not only poets, but also playwrights, scientists, translators, and journalists. The project is implemented with the support of the Fund of Social-Economic Programs and personal support of S. A. Filatov. The organizers of the Aurora Borealis festival comprise the Russian Cultural-Democratic Union, the Russian Center of Science and Culture in Helsinki, the Litera Society, and the Runo bar-studio.

The idea enjoyed support in creative circles of Russia and Finland and has been successfully implemented for two years. In January 2012 our festival was attended by famous poets and writers from Ukraine, Russia, Finland, and Sweden. In 2013, besides winter events, the festival Aurora Borealis with participation of poet and translator E. Ioffe, bilingual writer A. Perttu, poet and translator K. Korto, Editor-in-Chief of Other Shores magazine O. Pussinen, as well as scientist and poet N. Perevezentseva from St. Petersburg held poetic evenings, literary seminars and master classes. Participants included V. Mesyats (Moscow), A. Korovin (Moscow) A. Gritsman (New York), N. Reznik (Colorado), A. Ostudin (Kazan), M. Garber (Luxembourg), A. Melnik (Liege), A. Radashkevich and G. Pogozheva (Paris) and other distinguished writers, translators and scientists form the whole world.

We decided to devote the festival to Aurora Karamzina and called it Aurora Borealis as Polar lights are also called. The name presupposes northern realities and simultaneously associates with Aurora Karamzina, an outstanding beauty of the XIX century to who Pushkin, Baratynsky, and other poets devoted verses. For organizers the role of Aurora Karamzina as public figure is also important. She was a maid of honor at the empress and advocated Finnish interests in the Royal Court and helped Finland join the Russian Empire as a Grand Duchy. She was a woman who did a lot for the country politically and as a charity provider.

We emphasize historic moments related to the history of Sweden, Russia, and Finland in order to deeply study historic processes and better comprehend modern facts.

Does the festival signify the beginning of major and long work?

Yes, we have big plans. On May 24-25 Helsinki will host a seminar of translators, publishers, historians from Russia, Finland, and Sweden. We want to create a network of translators, writers, publishers and historians. We want to promote cultural aspects which will help overcome intercultural stereotypes. It is not only belles letters, but also essays, research, etc.

We need a network of contacts which will help people better understand each other. We plan to plug organizations into the network which are experienced in the sphere, such as the Finnish literature fund (FiLi), Russian publishing houses interested in translations of Russian literature into the Finnish language and vice versa. We would like not only to unite all people engaged in the process but also to act as intermediaries between them and carry out both cultural and educational projects. The Russian side represented by Moscow project coordinator Yevgenya Dobrovoi helps us a lot as it is already launching its own educational programs in Russia and Poland. Our task is to raise the awareness of the Finnish public about modern Russian literature and introduce interesting modern Finnish poetry to Russians. Our days are the time of flourishing poetry in Finland and its golden age.

Still frame: Aurora Charlotta Karamzina (1808-1902, full name — Eva Aurora Charlotta Stjernvall, a daughter of Swedish nobleman Lord Carl Johan Stjernvall and Baroness Eva Gustava von Willebrand, came down in history as public figure and founder and supporter of various charities. She was a granddaughter of the last governor of Finland. From 1836 she had the surname of Demidova and from 1846 – Karamzina. In 1836 Aurora Charlotta became a maid of honor of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Together with sister Emily and Countess Musina-Pushkina she was considered the first beauty in the Royal Court in Petersburg. As a maid of honor Aurora was very influential and was among those who convinced Alexander III not to make Finland a province of the Russian Empire but preserve autonomy rights with it. Alexander, who as the crown prince stayed in the Finnish mansion of Aurora Charlotta, in the final end adhered to her advice and other supporters of Finnish autonomy and decided to create a commission for the convocation of Finnish Sejm and grant the duchy a wide autonomy and laws to ensure its financial independence.

A warship fighting in the Crimean War was named after her. It was sunk by the English and the name went over to the legendary Aurora cruiser. She had a reputation of femme fatale as her three lovers and the only son Pavel Demidov died. Aurora was the muse of many poets and artists. Pushkin and Baratynsky devoted poems to her and portraits were painted by Brullov and Gau. She was twice married. In 1836 she married one of the richest Russian men – Pavel Demidov, the co-owner of Ural enterprises, actual state counselor, and Royal master of the hunt. Legends claim wedding gifts to Aurora included not only the famous Sancy diamond but also a scarf which belonged to Napoleon’s wife Josephina Bogarne. Demidov died a sudden death in 1840 and left Aurora with a child. She got married again in 1846. The husband was Andrei, the son of distinguished historian Nikolai Karamzin. He was an outstanding officer who was considered a prototype of Mikhail Lermontov’s hero Pechorin. After eight years of a happy life Aurora again became a widow as Colonel Karamzin was killed in the Crimean campaign in 1854. After that she fully devoted herself to charities.

She went down in Finland’s history as a public and charity figure who created nursing homes, orphanages, and hospices. She donated practically all her income from Demidov’s mining enterprises to the poor. In Gelsingforce Aurora Charlotta Karamzina created a permanent nursing service. The Evangelic society of nurses which she founded yet in 1867 still exists. Aurora also opened hospices and hospitals. Children’s Home Street has been preserved in modern Helsinki.

By developing the ties we want to operate not on amateur but professional basis and produce high quality anthologies, as p r o o f – r e a d e r s say – very copy-read anthologies. We include into them only the names which are legends of the poetry of the XX-XXI centuries. We assess the authors by the text and everybody knows we shall reject bad texts.

Our festival is expanding. We now have partners in St. Petersburg and Stockholm. The Swedish friends we got thanks to Yevgenya Dobrovoi asked us to address the Swedish-language cultural center in March. St. Petersburg proposed to join the festival Petersburg Bridges in late May this year. Natalya Perevezentseva, the second Russian coordinator of the project, helps us maintain contacts with colleagues in Petersburg.

The main idea of the festival is to create international cultural space to develop projects related to translation and publishing. It also promotes preservation of the Russian language and literature abroad.

Interviewed by Yulia Andreeva,

for Amber Bridge

The foundation of the cathedral was laid in 1211 and it is ten years younger than Riga. It is actually the second birthday of the city as due to the founder of the cathedral, German bishop Albert, it rapidly developed from a medieval settlement into a major Hansa city on the Baltic Sea. The current capital of Latvia is its successor.

Thanks to the Riga Duma headed by Mayor Nils Ushakovs the Dom Cathedral was saved from destruction at the very last moment. The current self-government of the Latvian capital city has finally done what its predecessors and the government ignored for decades. It began renovating the dilapidating architectural monument of global importance. The first stage will last two years and will be completed in 2014 when Riga becomes the cultural capital of Europe.

Various faces of cathedral

The Dom Cathedral is the heart and soul of ancient Riga that determines the atmosphere of Old Riga. In winter evenings its dark greatness dominates the square. In hot summer days it gives relieving shade for bright umbrellas of street cafes to hide under. In any time of the year screaming seagulls fly over its tower as is appropriate for any coastal city .

The cathedral acquired its current appearance in late XVIII century after a large-scale reconstruction. In over eight centuries the image of the main cathedral in Riga harmonically fit into various architectural styles. The construction of the Dom Cathedral began in the grandiose Roman style and generations of architects enriched it with elements of Gothic ascent, Baroque grotesque, and strictness of Classicism. Therefore the cathedral looks completely different from various sides.

A high brick wall surrounding the cathedral and monastery goes along the whole quarter. From time to time it disappears in houses built in various historic periods and then emerges again. For example, it happens so in Janiela Street better known as Flower Street where the famous Soviet 12-part movie Seventeen Moments of Spring was shot. The house of Mrs. Hudson from the famous Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson movie is glued to the old wall.

In one of the narrow deadends adjacent to the Dom Cathedral the brick surface of the wall has white plates. They are headstones. The first Livonian bishop Meinard and its last spiritual father Valter fon Pletenberg were buried in the Dom Cathedral. They stopped burying in the cathedral and around it in 1772 upon an order of Russian Empress Catherine the Second.

Where the light comes from…

The Dom Cathedral has always been a spiritual and education center. The Capitul – supreme Livonian spiritual leadership – assembled there to decide the life of the Baltic Sea region.

The Dom School was the oldest educational establishment in Livonia which trained future priests and all those wishing to enter universities. In the XVI century it became a higher school and was headed by Jacob Batus, a comrade-in-arms of Reformation father Martin Luther. Distinguished publicist Garlibs Merkels and philosopher Iogann Gerder lectured there. The monument to the latter stands in the namesake park at the main entrance to the cathedral. The freethinkers opposed serfdom and called for expanded rights of the Latvians who were oppressed by German barons. Their dreams came true, as we can see now. . .

Classes in the Dom School initially were in Latin and then in German language. From 1772 teaching was also in Russian language. Today the successor to the Dom School is called the First State High School which is considered to be the best secondary school in the country. Many distinguished people finished it, including two prime ministers of independent Latvia – Einars Repše and Ivars Godmanis.

The first Livonian library appeared under the spacious cupola of the Dom Cathedral. Manuscripts and books collected by monks were transferred to the first public library of Latvia which is currently subordinated to the Latvian University.

One of the oldest museums in Europe – of the History of Riga and Navigation – is also a part of the monastery complex. It emerged in 1773 on the basis of the private collection of Riga doctor Nikolas von Himzel. However many exhibits – coins, fishing tackle, and utensils – were discovered during excavations close to the cathedral.

Mysterious Albert

The foundation stone of the cathedral was laid on July 25, 1211 by Bishop Albert who arrived in Riga from Bremen to convert pagan Baltic tribes into Christianity. His vessels anchored in the mouth of the Ridzene River which flowed into the Daugava. In late XVII century it became shallow and later disappeared completely. Now the place between 13 January, Alksnaja and Vetspilsetas Streets is called Albert Square. In early ’60s of the past century archaeological excavations there produced remains of two ships resembling Viking vessels. Scholars believe they belonged to the flotilla of the bishop.

History says nothing how the father of Riga looked like. No portrait has preserved. There is only a vague image on old detrited coins. The Bank of Latvia issued their new copies on the eve of the 810th anniversary of Riga. However no matter how hard you try you cannot see his face features but only that he was of robust built.

The monument to Albert in the yard of the cathedral does not pretend either to be the same as the original. Descendants of Baltic Germans living in Germany have recently restored it at their own expense. The genuine monument vanished during evacuation in the First World War. Historians still disagree in assessing the activities of the bishop. On the one hand, he gave a green light to the Baltic conquests by Crusaders, historian Leonid Fedoseev wrote. Albert fon Buksgevden was not only a Christian enlightener, but mostly a knight of the Order of the Brothers of the Sword who conquered local tribes with fire and sword and subordinated them to Livonian authorities.

But on the other hand, we can say that Albert developed Latvians. . . into Latvians as current Latvia is a part of the Baltic territory which the Crusaders did not allow growing Lithuania to swallow. Had it not been for the courageous bishop modern Latvia would have been a suburb of Lithuania. Who knows? It is only clear that Albert considerably changed the fate of Riga.

Divine sounds

The refined and famous pipe organ is 600 years older than the cathedral. It was built in 1883 by German company E.F.Walcker&Co and is considered to be the most valuable in the world. Ferenc Liszt called Praising God the music he devoted to the first performance of the Dom pipe. Artist and philosopher Nicholas Roerich also admired it.

Jevgenija Lisicina has been playting the Dom pipe organ for over half a century. She moved from Leningrad to Riga for the purpose and is happy .

— There is nothing better than the Dom pipe in the world, she said.

Together with Jevgenija we go up the narrow stairs to the choir and the organ. The stone arch is just above the head. It echoes every word. The famous acoustic of the Dom Cathedral is another miracle.

Jevgenija changes shoes (as pipe playing requires leather shoes with a slippery sole and a wide heel), puts her hands on the keys and. . . the cathedral is full of magic sounds of Bach – either waves flow the coast or wind sounds in the skies. You feel good. It is calm and easy to think.

— I swim in the music and every time die of excitement, said Jevgenija when the last sound died out in the spacious hall. Jevgenija Lisicina is a bright represnetative of the Dom pipe school which emerged yet in the ’60s of the last century when the cathedral acquired the status of a concert hall.

Like Pēteris Sīpolnieks, Oļģerts Cintiņš, Larisa Bulava, Aivars Kalejs, and others she is a disciple of Nikolajs Vanadziņš, the patriarch of Latvian organ music. A graduate of Petersburg Conservatoire he educated a constellation of outstanding musicians. One of them – Tālivaldis Deksnis – teaches pipe organ in the Latvian Musical Academy. There is always a tough competition for the profession and the new constellation of young organ players – Edīta Alpa, Iveta Apkalna, Ilze Reine, Vita Kalnciema, Robert Hanson, Jānis Peļše, and Atis Stepiņš – have already asserted themselves.

From 1988 the Dom Cathedral annually hosts an international festival of pipe organ music in mid-summer. The daily 20-minute Piccolo Concert at midday enjoys incredible popularity among tourists. A total of 270 concerts are annually performed in the Dom Cathedral and its long-standing concert administrator Silvija Zaķeproudly said that no other concert hall can boast such popularity of the audience.

Burden of years

Natural calamities did not spare the cathedral. Lightnings numerously hit its high spire. There were fires caused by negligent people. According to the minutes of a court session, in 1696 “on Saturday before the first pre-Christmas Sunday organ master Brandisiy was in a bad mood and threw aside a burning candle which fell into a pile of rubbish between benches”. A fire immediately broke out, but was extinguished with a big effort.

There were also floods as the flat bank of the Daugava River used to be much closer to the cathedral than today. In April 1709 water was so high that monks hauled two fish at the altar. The flood occurred again in 35 years and they began to build dikes on the bank. If earlier you had to go upstairs to the main side entrance, now you have to go down eleven stair-steps.

Main illness of cathedral is time…

The cathedral is a living creature, said scientists who monitor the health of the patient with the latest equipment. The big building erected on coastal quicksand constantly subsides resulting in a web of cracks on the walls. In 2005 the state of the architectural pearl was recognized as critical – the tower of the cathedral declined 34 centimeters from the vertical. Wisecrackers immediately called it Dom-Pisa cathedral while UNESCO included it into the list of a hundred endangered objects.

At that time the Dom Cathedral became the property of Evangelic-Lutheran Church of Latvia and the national parliament adopted a law on the preservation of the valuable architectural complex. However nothing changed after it. The cathedral which was last renovated in 1909, over a century ago, continued to dilapidate.

The catastrophe was prevented at the last moment. The Riga Duma listed the preservation of the sacred place as a priority and earmarked four million US dollars to it. Nearly the same amount was received from the European Regional Development Fund in the framework of cultural monuments preservation program.

—We adopted the right decision, said Riga Mayor Nils Ushakovs.- In a couple of years the cathedral would begin to collapse and we would have to pay much more for its restoration. The mayor was right as unpleasant surprises were exposed during the work. The southern wall has cracked and the eastern facade which looked in order also needed urgent reinforcement. The renovation of the most important city object is being done by the RE&RE construction company. Architects say the main task is to preserve and reinforce the “eggshell” – roof, walls, and windows.

Safety margin

… A construction lift takes guests up to the roof from where Old Riga and the mottle strip of the Daugava spread out before you and where the wind is so strong that it can carry you away. The Golden Cockerel, the old guard of Riga, is very close and you can see how big it is.

The roof was the first element for the builders to deal with and the autumn of 2011 was luckily warm and dry in Riga. The rotten century- old framework was replaced and the coves were covered with copper. Today the plates have darkened already and acquired the necessary noble tint while in summer the roof of the ancient cathedral was light-mindedly shining in the sun. Builders hope the safety margin will last for three hundred years.

The Unique Cross Gallery which runs 118 meters along the internal yard has been put in order. Today the pearl of the Gothic architecture is open for visitors who want to admire the gray olden time. The Capitul Hall – the oldest premises in the cathedral – has been restored. It is located in the semi basement and water has for centuries oozed by the walls saturating the bricks and leaving salt on the surface. The bricks which are contemporaries of Bishop Albert have been carefully cleaned. Concerts and wedding parties will be held under the stone arches where supreme spiritual leadership of Livonia used to gather long ago.

Stained-glass windows are multi-color bright now. They were made in Germany and reflect the history of Riga dated back to late XIX century. Earlier glass masterpieces have been completely lost in church pogroms in Reformation times. The stained-glass windows are illuminated in the evening on holidays and the old cathedral resembles a fairy tale castle.

When bells ring…

—The developments in the Dom Cathedral are not just renovation or repairs. They are careful and meticulous restoration of a unique monument in which our experts use all the latest achievements and also experience of predecessors. The smallest carelessness can result in a loss of cultural values, said Didzis Putniņš, Re&Re director general.

If the restoration of another museum – the Stock Exchange – was an international project, the Dom Cathedral is restored only by local experts – thirty best restorers of the country use mostly Latvian materials and pay special attention to their compatibility with ancient constructions. Thus, restored wooden elements are bonded by ancient drop-forged nails which is a three-century old technology.

Today the scaffolds have been removed from the Dom Cathedral. At first sight the symbol of Riga looks like it did before. The paradox is that it was exactly the task of the restorers. The better they do the job the less visible it is. (The only difference is that the cathedral will offer access to handicapped people as it got wheelchair ramps). The work of Latvian masters was highly praised by the head of the World Lutheran Federation Martin Junge who last year visited Riga to see how the Dom Cathedral is transforming.

Head of the Latvian Evangelical-Lutheran Church Archbishop Jānis Vanags dreams of the time when bells will ring in the cathedral’s tower. The bells have been restored and are kept in the yard of the cathedral. Before mounting the tower has to be reinforced with metal constructions to sustain the weight of the bells.

Ancient Riga legend says that once in a hundred years the spirit of water comes out from the Daugava to ask city residents: “Has the construction of Riga been completed?” If somebody responds “Completed” the spirit will immediately grab him under the water. But Riga is permanently built and the evil spirit has to go back every time with nothing. The legend is also true for the Dom Cathedral. Its restoration will cost an estimated 76 million dollars and last ten years. Riga Duma leaders promised to continue investing in the salvation of the cathedral. – It is our duty to preserve the sacred building for next generations, said Riga Vice Mayor Andris Ameriks. While the Rigas Doms is safe and sound everything will be good in its city today and in hundred years. . .

Christina Liepinja,

for Amber Bridge

In the Miss Universe 2012 pageant final held on the night of last December 20 in Las Vegas 20-year old American Olivia Culpo won the crown. Estonia was represented by student Natalya Korneichuk, the winner of Miss Tallinn 2012 beauty contest and the first princess of Miss Estonia 2012 pageant. Although she failed to get even to the top fifteen American media called her performance “one of the strongest in the past years.” Natalya said she was satisfied with the trip and experience.

Were you afraid, Natasha?

I was not very aware of what to expect in Las Vegas although I realized there will be 70 live broadcast TV channels and 700 million viewers. It adds responsibility. I know by experience that 15 seconds before the first appearance are the most horrible ones. Twelve. . . ten. . . eight. . . five. . . Everybody in position and you see the edge of the stage. You shiver, but there is no other option than to subdue the fear and come out with a proudly raised head. As soon as you go on stage all emotions move to the background. You have to do your job. The final is not the most important event when spectators see you on TV. The so-called preliminary performance before the jury which lasts some three hours is more significant as the finalists are determined there. Then the show of national costumes follows and the final.

Preparations for such a large-scale pageant demand major effort. It is not an easy walk. Each day participants meet at 6 hours in the morning at breakfast: everybody has to be fit, relaxed and smile. You have to smile round-the-clock. We succeeded to excellently do it in the first days, but got tired of it soon. Every hour was busy and we could not even make an unplanned step without permission. We stayed all the time in the hotel and were allowed outside only a few times. We were divided in groups of four girls and each group had a mamma – a girl who looked after us, reported the news, and managed the work plan. Miss Italia was my neighbor. Her delegation asked for it as I was the only participant who spoke Italian. So I worked as a translator in the first days and helped Russian and Italian girls with interviews. As for communications, they tell various things about pageants, but all participants decently behaved themselves. As it usually happens the girls formed groups – Latin American countries, Asian, and English-speaking. We had a nice company – Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Italy and me.

See a model in teenager

It is hard to meet a girl today who would not dream of showing herself out. Did you also dream of catwalk, stage, or screen?

On the contrary, I was a diligent schoolgirl and studied well. There were no teenager problems with me and I did not trouble my parents. But all of a sudden my life changed: I was noticed and offered to try myself as a model, i.e. to use both intellect and appearance.

I mastered the fashion industry step by step. I was a pawn and thought why can’t I try and be the queen?

How did they notice you? In the street?

They saw my photos, not me. I placed them in a social network on a popular Estonian website. It was yet before the Facebook era. There were only two photos in which I looked like a true teenager with tumbled hair and a cap and in “military” trousers. I believe it was very difficult to see a model in the teenager. However they did and convinced me to come to a casting. My mother went with me. I was dressed like in the pictures as I hated high heels. I called my classmates who wore high heels in school as dollies. I preferred sportswear or torn jeans, T-shirts and jogging shoes. I remember my mother insisting that I should not go to the theater in the jogging shoes. Strange as it was they offered me to go to Milan. At the age of 16 I could not make independent decisions while my parents were strict people and education was most important for them. I promised in writing to the mother and father that I would never reprimand them if they allow me to try myself in the model business. After long negotiations I left on my first labor contract. Thus I became a model.

Pawn wants to be queen

What did the school of life teach you?

I mastered the fashion industry step by step. I was a pawn and thought why can’t I try and be the queen? I had to thoroughly study how the whole system operates. I specialize in management, business governance, fashion marketing which is haute couture marketing, fashion brand management, and public relations in the sphere. It is definitely a narrow niche however the range of knowledge is big.

You can use it any other business, not only fashion. But I am interested in the fashion industry which I properly know. Now I am learning how the mechanism operates from the other side, not only as a model sees it. It takes time to get to the top of the career ladder and decide yourself (e.g. who is to be the face of the season). It is a long way.

It seems I heard some disdain when you said you were a pawn. A pawn is the only chess figure which does not backtrack. It is the main figure in a certain way.

I meant biased opinion about models. “Are you a model? You are simply nothing! You do what they tell you to do”. That is not true. Naturally we have to thoroughly plan the operating scheme – there is an agent who distributes models and is in charge of them. The work itself is not that easy and simple as it might look. The main problem is the psychological barrier as every day you have to hear not very pleasant words. Today you are too slim, tomorrow you are too fat, the day after tomorrow you have the wrong shape of the nose. Every day you have to reconcile with someone’s dislike of you. You have to go to castings for them to see you, fit you in their brand and decide whether to hire you or not. There are 7-8 castings every day. There will definitely be someone naughty who would spoil your mood and try to humiliate and offend you. The psychological component of the profession is difficult. You have to be very strong to pass the tests and climb to the top which few people can reach.

Were you upset? Did you cry?

I did when I was small. Just imagine: you are sixteen, you go to school where everybody praises you as a good girl. Then you arrive in a new place where nobody cares whether you are good and smart. They closely look at you and say: “Something is wrong with her. Definitely something is wrong. We have to think whether we want to work with you. We have to think hard. And you go to castings while we are thinking.” After a week you no longer remember the words as everyone is caring for you and saying you are so wonderful! Everything is unreliable and fragile in the profession. You can never be hundred percent convinced in tomorrow .

Did you get used to it for long?

I had no time to get used to it as I had to work. First I had to learn to properly walk on high heels. It is an art specifically if you wore only flat shoes before. High heels can deform you leg. So you have to gradually get used to them. I did it with time and even enjoyed it as there was a reverse effect – I stopped wearing jogging shoes and abandoned my sport style. I began to pay more attention to my clothes and to what is fashionable at present. It was a maturing stage when you abandon your previous indifference to how you look. Naturally, it affected my development as a girl and female – you care about your look, you want to be beautiful regardless of the situation, you w ant to enjoy yourself .

The work was different. When I first came to Milan and I began with presentations and worked for the American Guess firm. I am not very tall for the catwalk – 175 centimeters. Milan and specifically Paris like very tall girls and I was too small for the catwalk. My appearance better fits photos, they call it commercial appearance. That is why I mostly posed for pictures: cosmetic brands, e.g. L’Oreal, clothes brands – Fornarina, an Italian brand.

In contrast to beauty industry the model business prefers it natural. No sunrooms, no buildup hair or extended eyebrows. You have to show your natural appearance.

You had to quit your natural look, didn’t you?

It is not that easy. Take the hair color, for example. Now I have brown hair. I changed my natural gray color at the age of 15. “Feathers” were fashionable at the time and I had a multicolor hairdo which I greatly enjoyed. When I first came to an agency they told me I can try myself in the business only if I immediately go to the hairdresser to return my natural color. In contrast to beauty industry the model business prefers it natural. No sunrooms, no buildup hair or extended eyebrows. You have to show your natural appearance.

Much depends on you, but not everything

Is it a myth that all models are stupid?

Don’t forget there are models for sale. It specifically concerns popular models. Why did they become so famous? Because they are for sale. Our Estonian models Karmen Kass and Karmen Pedaru are very intelligent girls. To rise to the top of success you have to be psychologically strong and keen in the fashion industry. You have to know what is happening in it, communicate and be of interest to various people. We work in Milan, Paris, New York, and Asia. There are different cultures. You have to be tolerant and know how to share your culture.

These are not vague generalities! If you are an interesting person and psychologically strong individual who leads a healthy way of life you can achieve success.

Luck is not important, isn’t it?

It is not the only reason, so to say. I have a close friend who is an ideal person without exaggeration. Since the age of 13 she has been dreaming of going to New York and rising to the top of the fashion industry, be recognized and successful. She did a lot to achieve it. She is very intelligent, educated in law, an open and interesting person with a healthy way of life. She did it for her dream, but it did not come true.

What is she doing now?

She is a lawyer back home in Croatia. She was 22 when we met in Milan. She had a higher education, a record in model business, and she helped me a lot. However she failed to succeed in her model career no matter how hard she tried. She went back home and was hired by a law firm. Somebody would say she has a good and prestigious job. But her eyes no longer burn like they did in Milan. There are opposite examples: a girl walked in a street, they noticed her and invited not only as a cover girl, but to the best IMG agency in New York. It was a loud start from the very beginning, a big career. It was luck! Unfortunately, not everything depends on you. But I believe if there is a dream you should try and do everything possible to make it come true. If you fail you will lead a life like all other people do.

Each model dreams of coming to New York. I thought they preferred Paris.

It was Paris before as it was the trendsetter in the fashion industry. Milan as well. Now it is New York. Today you cannot just decide and go to New York. You can go to Milan. Let’s take a beginner model in Tallinn. You can ask to send you to Milan. It is possible to find an agency in Milan that would agree to accept you. It is impossible in New York. There are two options: if you are 14-15 years old and an absolutely new face you have a chance: if you correspond to their criteria they will make a model out of you and will help you. There is no guarantee you will succeed but they may take you because you are young and have a potential. The second option: you have a record in Milan, Paris or London, possibly Madrid or Barcelona, you have a weighty portfolio. Then you may go to New York. They take very strong girls, as a rule. New York is the final stage. Milan is most open today. Paris is more difficult as they are very demanding and captious there. They want every girl to have an ideal shape and appearance. The model industry is quickly developing and girls began to go to Tel Aviv where they shoot excellent photos. Had I earlier said I am going to Tel Aviv it would sound strange, to say the least. Today Israel is a new market with excellent photographers and interesting offers. It is an excellent possibility to fill your portfolio. Or take Asia. Earlier it was considered a secondary market. Now it is very prestigious to work in Singapore or Hong Kong.

Miss Russia told me she had a busy schedule of meetings and events. It is very honorable to be the first beauty of the country.

Pageant — the rules of the game

This year you won Miss Tallinn title and were the First Princess in Miss Estonia pageant and represented the country at Miss Universe 2012 in Las Vegas. Isn’t it enough to be a model? Is it also necessary to be a recognized beauty? How does a model differ from a Miss? Is it a wrong question?

No. There is a difference.

A model means classical facial features, but no bright individuality, no zest, as they say. Actually there is, but it is different, that of a model. As a rule, it is a bright-haired girl with unclear facial features and not very expressive eyes. They can paint whatever they want on such a face and adjust it to any style or brand. A beauty or miss has a catchy appearance with a zest – either bright eyes or puffed lips. A gorgeous girl cannot be a model, as a rule. Naturally, there are exceptions. Brazil’s super model Andriana Lima is very beautiful and popular. But she is mostly a show girl. Suffice it to recall the show of the famous Victoria’s Secret Fashion brand.

The idea to participate in a pageant appeared long ago. At that time I did not study but worked in Milan. It came not to my mind, but to my friends. They suggested participating in a contest. I thought it might be an interesting new guideline.

The first pageant was international and rather difficult. I represented Estonia at Miss Globe International 2011 held in Northern Cyprus. I was very proud of myself when I went there as I had a record in the industry, knew how to walk and how to do the makeup. Everything will be easy and simple! You should have seen how the girls laughed at me when I walked my model way at the first rehearsal. A beauty contest has different rules of the game. Absolutely different! At the first show which introduced each country I put on a black dress, straightened my hair and used shiny lipstick. Then I saw all those dollies with glued eyebrows, buildup hair curls, and bright dresses. God, what is it? We went on stage and I got lost among them. The second rule: natural look does not work at a beauty contest. It does not matter how beautiful or nice you are. You have to be bright and catchy. It is no catwalk, it is a show. Everything is different – bright dresses, curly hair, red lips. In this sense beauty contest participants are true dollies. I realized that if I want to be catchy and equally compete with them I have to play their rules. It was a good lesson: I learned what a pageant is and how it differs from the model industry .

Still I was in the top ten at the pageant and won Miss Photogenic title. It was important that I communicated with girls from various countries. I was surprised to know that beauty contests are very important for many countries. In Venezuela or Spain, for example, the contests are a religion! The culture ministries allocate huge money for them. Girls who want to join Miss Venezuela contest prepare for it since the age of 16. A the age of 18 or 20 they may get to a casting. Miss Venezuela meets the ruling elite and participates in charity. She goes to the United States as it is an important part of national culture for the country. Not only in Venezuela, but in the whole of Latin America. Miss Russia told me the same things. She has a busy schedule of meetings and events. It is very honorable to be the first beauty of the country. It is different in Estonia. Unfortunately, too many pageants have appeared of late. People get confused as there are too many Miss as if there is nothing else to do. Had there been a single national high-level contest which elected the only Miss, the result would be better on the international level, I believe. Last time Miss Estonia enjoyed success at Miss Universe contest 12 years ago. She was among the top ten. Miss Universe pageant was held for the 61st time. In the past 60 years Estonia was in the top ten only once. Competition was tough this time but I did everything possible to properly fulfill my mission.

Preparations for the pageant were the most difficult time as they required a lot of effort to find support and distribute information about the upcoming event in our country. Most participants from other countries arrived in Las Vegas from resorts after rest. They were full of strength while I was already tired by the time of the pageant.

File. Natalya Korneichuk Student of the Design University in Milan specializes in fashion industry marketing and PR. Participant in Elite Model Look 2006

Titles: Miss Tallinn 2012 (winner) First Princess in Miss Estonia 2012 pageant Miss Globe Estonia 2011 (winner) Miss Globe International 2011 (top 10, Miss Photogenic) Speaks Russian, Estonian, English, and Italian.

There were people who helped me selflessly in preparations because they cared how I represent the country. However there should be a special professional team to arrange preparations for such a large-scale event. They say “one cannot conquer alone”. I have mixed feelings at present – joy and disappointment. Joy is because of unique experience which will help progress. I was noticed by international media which positive commented my performance. Interesting options of my career in fashion and show business appeared. Participation in Miss Universe pageant gives you a certain status which is important if you want to work in America or Asia where interest in pageants and the world of beauty is high. I am glad I got new acquaintances and opportunities. Disappointment comes from too much time and effort used in preparations and the result itself. Many people ask which place I occupied. Only top 15 are announced, other results are not published. Anyway, there would be much more chances had the Estonian representative enjoyed strong support of her own country and had a Miss Estonia delegation been present at the pageant with a well-known official sponsor like most countries did. I believe the rest was done as properly as my personal resource allowed me to prepare for the pageant.

Ella Agranovskaya,

for Amber Bridge

No matter how they call Yuri Bashmet one thing is clear – he is one of the few musicians destined to open new horizons and guidelines for future generations. Bashmet made the viol a leader of modern concert art.

On the day of the jubilee Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the musician with the Order for the Merits to the Motherland IV Degree. It was not the first or last award in the life of the Maestro. His collection includes two French decorations – Legion of Honor Order and the Order of Arts and Letters, Italian Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Lithuanian Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas…

Decorations are not as important as the breakthrough he achieved in musical art. He raised the viol to a completely new level and moved it from the shade of violins to the center stage. His energy and charm also fill in his everyday life like skills with the fiddle bow do on stage.

Bashmet is a very sincere person. A diplomatic man would keep silent or respond evasively while he is different. He is often attacked for that by people who are not keen in music, specifically classical music, and who devoted all their life to the struggle on political barricades.

My interpretation of Beethoven or Schubert does not depend on the leaders of the country beginning from Brezhnev and up to nowadays. It can transform with years but it does not depend on the instructions of the ruling party and government. When our great composers, e.g. Prokofiev or Shostakovich, had to compose something on order it did not spoil their music. But our people enjoy swimming in political ways. Our pendulum is eternal and swings from one extreme to the other. We unveil monuments and then pull them down. But you cannot change history by revenging monuments. Why did they stop playing Khrennikov’s music? He composed outstanding music, e.g. the First Symphony. He lived and worked in the same time as Shostakovich.

Yuri Bashmet made a breakthrough in musical art. He raised the viol to a completely new level and moved it from the shade of violins to the center stage.

From childhood

Yuri was born in Rostov-on-Don into a typical family of the time. Father Abram was a railway engineer while mother Maya – a philologist and teacher. The father moved to Lvov when Yuri was six. The future violist grew up there and nothing predicted his exciting career.

Lvov was a specific city at the time. The mother was mostly afraid her son would get involved in a bad company and end in prison. Therefore, she quickly enlisted him into a music school to deny free time. Young hooligans were known to walk around in the yard with a violin case. Nobody thought about a viol at the time. It appeared in Yuri’s life later. He disclosed how it happened:

The mother feared bad street company and decided I had to do something after school. The violin was the cheapest instrument. It cost nine or 15 rubles. Thus, I got a violin after I finished the first form. My mother did it all properly. I was not locked up in a room like Paganini and was not compelled to rehearse for eight hours daily. She did not deny me food when I was tired of playing and allowed me to bike. I remember the wise words of Solyarsky: I do not need talented children, I need talented mothers. I was transferred to a specialized music school which combined general and musical education. I had to jump one class in the music school. W e did it with my mother but it turned out there was no free place in the violin class. The mother did not object the viol as she was told it was just a big violin. I was too small for the viol and played the violin in a viol class. When I turned out to be the best violinist in the school my teacher Vishnevskaya did not want me to switch to the viol. The director said he had to consult the parents who would decide.

However it was Yuri who made the decision. He made his choice not because he admired the sounds of viol. There were other reasons for that.

I loved to play guitar — I played in a band and we performed The Beatles songs, but I played the violin for my mom. It was important for her  that I keep studying. Vishnevskaya gave me astonishing technique and I began to feel the breath of the instrument. I met one good violist who said: play the viol and you will have more free time to play the guitar. In the violin class they had to play Paganini eight hours a day. I made the choice which determined my life.

It was excellent life, Yuri recalls. Imagine a boy with long Beatles-like hair who organized his own band that quickly became popular in the city. His hobby even earned him some money. But once classical music accidentally burst into his life. From The Beatles affection Bashmet retained long hair but classical music and spirituality definitely took the upper hand. The great violist recalled how it happened:

Once in school we listened to the Sixth Symphony by Tchaikovsky and the Second Concert by Rachmaninoff. I once woke up the mother and father who listened to Tchaikovsky with me. It is still my beloved music.

So he fell in love. After the Lvov music school Yuri Bashmet entered the Moscow Conservatoire. It was a new stage of his life as he joined the elite of domestic musical art.

I once woke up the mother and father who listened to Tchaikovsky with me. It is still my beloved music.

Conquering the heights

Second-year student Bashmet made a purchase which he cannot abandon up to now – a viol by Paolo Testore (1758). He played various famous instruments created by outstanding masters – Stradivari, Guarneri. However he did not even think to change his old Testore for something new. He is loyal to all his affections. He narrates the viol purchase story as a meeting with a beloved human being.

We were destined to meet. I bought the old instrument in late ’70s when I was first-year student. It cost 1500 rubles — half the price of a Zaporozhets car. I did not have the money. My father borrowed it from acquaintances and relatives and I repaid the amount for long. Half a year later I was offered another instrument for three thousand rubles. Actually I had to sell the old one, borrow more money and buy the new one. But we matched so well with the viol. I no longer looked for new instruments.

Naturally I played Guarneri and Stradivari and know the strength of the instruments. However I have a better understanding with my viol. It is like in marriage — we have mutual under standing.

Second-year student of the Conservatoire Yuri Bashmet became popular in sophisticated musical circles. They spoke about him a lot and said the student had a great future. He was sent to participate in prestigious international competitions. The year of 1975 was decisive as Yuri Bashmet won the second prize at an international competition of violists and a year later received Grand Prix at a competition in Munich.

Next year he graduated from the Conservatoire and was actively engaged in concerts and performed not only in Russia but also in Germany with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. Two years later the Moscow Conservatoire invited him to work as a teacher in the alma mater. In ten years Bashmet became a master of sciences and then a PhD. He did not idle his time away and always looked for something new in profession. He created and headed an experimental viol desk in the Conservatoire. Besides solo viol repertoire the curriculum also included the history of performing styles of the past and present, a course of viol roles in chamber, opera and symphonic music.

Yuri Bashmet is also the founder and jury chairman of the first and only Russian International competition of violists in Moscow and president of the Lionel Tertis International competition of violists in England. Now his students win international competitions. It was the time when Bashmet’s viol conquered the best concert halls in Europe and many outstanding musicians invited him to join their concerts, among them Stanislav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Isaac Stern, Anne-Sophi Mutter, Gidon Kremer, Viktor Tretyakov, and others.

Distinguished composers began to produce music for him. Alfred Schnittke composed a viol concert for Yuri Bashmet which was his best composition that finally convinced the world that the viol can do everything and is a full-fledged solo instrument. For the first time in world performance history Yuri Bashmet and his old viol gave solo concerts in most popular halls of the world: Carnegie Hall in New York, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Barbican in London, the Berlin Philharmonic and La Scala in Milan. Nobody has ever dared do it. But Bashmet was born to be a pioneer .

Moscow Soloists — two birthdays of chamber orchestra

Yuri Bashmet became a conductor by chance. He once had to conduct an orchestra to replace ill Valery Gergiyev. It did not trigger major consequences but recollections definitely remained. Then another occasion happened. Yuri Bashmet recalls:

Young and advanced artistic director of La Scala in Milan decided to invite me for a solo concert. The viol played solo for the first time in Italy. It was a courageous undertaking as some audience could be scared off while another attracted. The concert was a success. I was offered to give another concert and it was again a success. It was difficult to find the repertoire for a third concert as not much has been composed for viol. I suggested some sonatas and settings. They rejected saying they needed hits. I have already played Schuman, Brahms, and Schubert. We could hardly find enough compositions for a concert. It was a true repertoire hunger. I understood it was necessary to change the format. There was an idea to switch to a different genre — chamber conducting. I was enthusiastic about it although as a soloist I was extremely negative about conductors. Only few of them feel the music as good as musicians do. A violist is no sound maker and no a virtuoso who kills the audience with professional skills. He is a person who can come close to the idea of the composer and diffract it through himself. There is another type of a thinker or extravagant performer who focuses attention on specifics of his personal interpretation. There are few of them.

Among violinists they are Gideon Kremer and Thomas Tietmye, and Richter was among pianists. You have to display charm on stage. You either have it or not.

The violist has proper charm. In 1986 the Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra emerged. Bashmet successfully toured with it for seven and a half years until the musicians decided to remain in France where they had a term contract. Yuri Bashmet numerously said it was a major shock for him. He had to leave the musicians and quit the leadership of the orchestra. But in 1992 he returned to the idea of a chamber orchestra and created a new one. He selected musicians who he knew not by hearsay. They were graduates and post-graduates of the Moscow Conservatoire. Now the Moscow Soloists Orchestra is a brand identity of Russia and a quality sign. In 2008 it won the most prestigious musical prize — Grammy for the best chamber performance of Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

Ten years ago Bashmet headed the New Russia State Symphonic Orchestra which confirms that he never rests on the laurels and is in constant search for a platform for musical experiments. A typical example: on November 28, 2012 Sochi hosted the first gala concert by musicians of the first pan-Russian junior competition launched by Yuri Bashmet. However the story of the first Moscow Soloists who preferred to stay in France raises a question: why has the maestro never even hinted about settling down somewhere in Europe and visit Russia only occasionally?

Yuri Bashmet explained it frankly and comprehensively:

There are things which are difficult to explain. You do not voice them. Such simple notions as music, listener, performer contain much more than it seems. When I travel in Russia the notions unite in one community. The audience is mine while I belong to it. It is the main and exciting difference between a concert in Russia and outside it. I value a concert in the Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire higher than in Carnegie Hall. You can find the same understanding and feeling abroad only if there is big Russian Diaspora — Israel or America. Otherwise nobody and nowhere has the same emotions as in Russia. There is only love to some performers which develops with years. Naturally, it exists in Italy, France or England but I lack what is above the music there. There is no common language. The audience has not left me and it means the listeners lead a complex life. I am not saying their life is not bright. There are things which are not explained by words. We breathe them. There is an incredible understanding between those who live in Russia. It unites us…

Bashmet narrates the purchase story of his viol which plays up to now as a meeting with a beloved human being.

There are things which you do not write or say. They are in the air. For example, everyone wants to leave the country to enjoy freedom. But to have freedom you need an address to be free from something. If there is no address it is no freedom but anarchy. I like my address which is Moscow, Russia. I like to come back there.

Few words about why Yuri Bashmet agrees to perform not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg but also in small towns which are usually called provincial:

I like it in the provinces. It is important for my work to keep the current communications running. You feel me and I feel you. The same happens with music. A small town often gives more than a concert abroad because people listen to music differently here. For small town classical music is a discovery, a revelation.

Talented in all

Everything what Yuri Bashmet undertakes becomes a major event. Besides music he did not hesitate to star in a continuation of the ASSA blockbuster By Sergei Solovyov. The first part was shot for the generation which grew up in the 1980s, while the second takes place 20 years later for current generation and speaks about its problems and rock music. It was also an experiment as Bashmet recalled his affection to rock and electric guitar in young years. It was exciting to see him performing Want to Sky song together with the Leningrad band of Sergei Shnurov.

Did Bashmet dream of anything which did not come true? The maestro was frank:

Only in music. I have done a lot out of my plans. For example, I dreamt of performing Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. It has happened and reoccurred numerous times. What is impossible is to learn the Second Concert by Rachmaninoff and perform it on piano. I do not have enough skills. So there are things which I will never accomplish, unfortunately.

It seems there is no sense to continue describing Yuri Bashmet. On the eve of his jubilee he gathered a group of journalists and told them what he thinks is important in life, which rules are obligatory for any person who considers himself to be a decent man.

Human decency

I often say that human decency is most important. If I have to decide whether to keep a less talented musician in the orchestra and teach him playing or instead keep an indecent genius, I prefer the former. Such things happened in my life, but thanks God there were only two cases. An act by a musician contradicted my principles. I cannot tolerate you-be-damned attitude to business. Overall quality should not suffer because of one person.

Musician or conductor?

It is difficult to answer the question in two words. Naturally, I am changing. One thing is to be a soloist and quite another to be a conductor. These are different states of mind. Have you ever played the roulette? He who played will understand me. It is like putting one chip on red and another on black and wait what happens. In that sense no matter how brilliantly Rostropovich conducted he still remains a great cellist. No matter how good Pletnev conducted he still is a great pianist. The same concerns Spivakov. I was the first to make the viol a soloist. Therefore, they associate me first and foremost with a violist, not conductor.

Although… I am no conductor in life but when I stand at the conductor’s desk it becomes necessary to use your will and power to carry a hundred people with you. One specialty is too narrow for me. It is impossible to play one and the same music by a dozen composers all your life in order to travel the world and earn a living. I want to have something new and develop myself and the repertoire.

About violist Danilov

I was already popular when the novel came out. They called me different names — demonic (for long hair), Paganini, and even Gagarin for the breakthrough of the viol into soloist life. I have long reconciled with comparison to violist Danilov although initially it irritated me. I found the author — Vladimir Orlov and the violist who he described in the novel. His name was Vladimir Grot. He was slim, tall, had a beard and worked in the Bolshoi Theater. A hundred percent demon! I even held his viol in my hands. Mine is better. When the novel came out again for the 36th time and it happened in Japan they put my portrait on the cover without permission. What can I do about it? Years passed and it all settled down. A month and a half ago my friend and composer Sasha Tchaikovsky told me: “I have the first night of Violist Danilov opera in Porkovsky theater. I devoted it to you”. A gain violist Danilov!

Musical joke from Yuri Bashmet

Jokes are mostly invented by musicians, I believe by violinists. They do it because of envy as viol does not demand so much training as violin. I will tell you a joke: the conductor did not come to a performance. What is to be done as the loss of concert means a big budget hole? They began to call another conductor, then another one, but all of them were busy. All of a sudden the violist in the back row said the whole concert program was his 25-year old diploma. So he suggested to conduct the orchestra. He got to the stand and the orchestra performed concerts for four days. Then the conductor came and the violist went back to his place. His neighbor violist asked him: “Where have you been all the time?”

Andrei Karavaev,

for Amber Bridge

The Lithuanian scientific community has recently marked the centenary of the birth of Leo Vladimirov (1912-1999), a scholar, historian and book expert whose effort helped return 20 thousand rare and valuable book collections to the library of the Vilnius University. They used to belong to it, but were withdrawn after the closure of the university in 1832. The Vilnius University and the library prepared an exhibition of the rare restituted publications which will be open up to the middle of this year. Thanks to Professor Vladimirov the most valuable for Lithuanians book – Catechism by Martynas Mazvydas – returned back home. The first book in the Lithuanian language was published in Konigsberg in 1547 and besides the basics of religion comprised also the Lithuanian alphabet. Thus it laid the basis for Lithuanian script and for the formation of national conscience. .

Only the restitution of lost treasures would be sufficient for the inclusion of Vladimirov into the list of personalities who greatly influenced the cultural development of the country. He was also the founder of a new guideline in library work. He initiated the creation of a library and scientific information desk in the Vilnius University which trained librarians while all institutes in Lithuania got a course of information basics and prepared a concept of computerized system of scientific and technical information. Today it will hardly surprise anyone. But Leo Vladimirov introduced the new course over 40 years ago as if he foresaw the advent of the era of computers with their major possibilities. The foundation he created (Vladimirov quit the desk at the age of 78 in 1990) was used by the Vilnius University to launch a year later a faculty of communications which united the bibliography, information systems, and communications theory desks.

He is the author of scientific works about printing pioneers – Francis Skaryna who published the book Apostle in Vilno in 1525 according to the sign on the front page, and Ivan Fedorov, as well as about the role of Vilno (as Vilnius was called in the Middle Age) in the emergence of book printing in Eastern Europe.

He said his main work was the General Book History. Its first part that covered a period from the ancient world to the XVII century initially came out in the Lithuanian and then (in 1988) in the Russian language. The second part has never come out as publishers changed priorities. In preparations for the birth centenary of Vladimirov the Vilnius University jointly with its library published a beautiful catalogue of restituted books – Vetera reducta. The proceeds are to be used for the publication of the second part of the book by the professor .

A brilliant intellectual and erudite who was awarded medals and other decorations by the United Nations, Vatican, the Lithuanian Gediminas Order III degree, the Belarussian Francis Skaryna medal, and the Red Star military order, Vladimirov enjoyed love and respect of the people in Lithuania who call him selfless patriot of the country.

At first there was the Book

Speaking about his teacher the academic secretary of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Domas Kaunas, was confused whether Vladimirov was a Russian, Lithuanian, or a citizen of the world. He called him “a European”. In reality Vladimirov was a third-generation citizen of Lithuania but always called himself a representative and heir of the Russian culture. That becomes clear from the role of books in his life.

His grandfather Ivan Vladimirov graduated from a medical college and was invited to work as a doctor in a small Lithuanian town of Telsai. He founded the first hospital in the province and was awarded the title of honorable citizen for that. His family preserved the traditions of Russian intelligentsia of the time: they read books out loud in the evenings, both classical and new ones. The home library had five thousand books. There was a cult of Leo Tolstoy with who Ivan Vladimirov corresponded. It was he who insisted that his first grandson be called Leo. As the First World War broke out the grandfather was enlisted into the army and served as a colonel in command of a division field hospital. As the German troops advanced his family left the native place and resettled to Ukraine from where they came back home in 1920. Ivan Vladimirov was the first to return. He was shocked to see that the library was burnt down by the Germans. The most valued relic – a letter from Leo Tolstoy – was also destroyed. Ivan Vladimirov died in 1921 after all the hardships he experienced, as well as typhoid at the front.

Children and grandchildren of Ivan Vladimirov returned back to a ruined home. Everything was looted. Leo’s father Ivan, a graduate from the St. Petersburg Technological Institute was an engineer by profession. Together with his cousin he invented and patented a substance to clean steam boilers from lime deposits. When the family came back to Lithuania he could not find employment. His wife Stefanija Daujotaite, a descendant of the ancient Lithuanian Daujotaite family, could not resume her medical practice either. She was the first woman from Lithuania who received higher medical education first in Switzerland and then in Tartu University where she qualified as a dentist. Her dentist’s office was also looted.

The Vladimirovs did not surrender on the brink of misery. They moved to Siauliai and in 1926 opened there a commercial library-shop with subscriptions and also signed a deal with Kaunas publishers where they received all the latest publications. The library had a bookbinding and restoration workshop. By the ’40s the business began to yield modest proceeds. Leo Vladimirov recalled that since the age of 12 he enjoyed helping the mother with compiling the catalogue. At that time he studied in a German boarding school in Silute. It was a deliberate choice as the only Russian school was far away in Kaunas while the German one won was famous for the quality of education. The parents reasonably believed the knowledge of yet another language would be good for the son who spoke Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish. Besides, it was important that it was a boarding school where children were fed and looked after for a modest pay. Coming back home on Saturdays and Sundays and later for holidays as a student of the Anglo-German desk of the humanitarian faculty of the Kaunas University Vladimirov worked in the home library-shop, delivered books, accepted orders, and registered new book arrivals. However he did not knew at the time that library would become his life-work.

Vladimirov met his future wife Irina Reingard, the daughter of a Russian Navy officer and captain second rank, in Kaunas University. Upon graduation he was already married but could not find employment by profession and began his career in an insurance company.

Deliberate choice

When World War Two broke out Ivan Vladimirov with sons Leo and Andrei joined the retreating Red Army to fight the Nazis. They were in Belarus and in one town saw children rescuing books from a burning school and handing them out to Red Army soldiers. One of them gave a book to Leo Vladimirov. It was the second volume of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

The book became a mascot for him and he learned many of its parts by memory. Leo Vladimirov fought in the war in the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division. He was wounded several times and suffered concussions but survived and returned back home in the rank of a captain. On his way back home via liberated Belarus he presented the book to the first school he saw on his way. He joined the Communist Party at the front. It was a difficult but deliberate choice. He was sure it was the omnipotent political force that routed Nazis who he considered criminals destroying everything valued by a person educated by the ideas and behests of great Russian humanists.

In the XX century the fates of Russian people deprived of historic Motherland interlaced into curious patterns. While Leo fought in the Red Army his wife Irina together with small daughter Natasha found refuge from the war in the house of her father Fedor Reingard, a convinced monarchist who hated the Soviet power. His name went down in big letters into the history of pre-war Lithuania.

The noble Reingard family settled down in Lithuania in the early 18th century in the time of Rzeczpospolita near the town of Ukmerge where the they owned spacious land. All male representatives of the family were professional military men. They were Russian Germans loyal to Russia and the emperor. Fedor Reingard, a graduate from the Navy Academy in St. Petersburg, was no exception.

His life offers a script for an exciting novel about time and people. He fought in the Russian-Japanese war and was taken prisoner in Port Arthur although, according to peace treaty terms, he could have avoided captivity as an officer had he sworn to never fight against the Japanese. However he decided to share the fate of ordinary sailors. Fedor Reingard described his adventures in memoirs Short Life – Much Experience. Impressions of a Young Officer about War and Captivity which are valuable for Navy historians. He later served in the Baltic and Northern fleets.

A convinced monarchist he rejected the Bolshevik revolution, quit the command of a battleship and resigned. He said he witnessed “a complete collapse of the country in which I do not want to participate” He was insulted by the new rules in the Navy, senseless deaths of sailors and outrageous reprisals against officers. He wrote in his memoirs: “The Russian fleet participated in numerous battles and I saw many ships sink, but I do not remember a single case when an officer would rescue himself before all sailors were safe. The revolutionaries failed to stain the honor of Navy officers.”

He was naturally arrested for his convictions and had to be executed, but sailors who admired their commander saved him. He took his family to Ukraine from where he proceeded to Crimea together with the Volunteer Army of the White Guards. When Crimea fell to the Red Army he organized evacuation of the military and their families to Turkey aboard the Kronstadt transport ship.

In Turkey he made a boat to earn a living by fishing and transportation. In 1922 the Reingards returned to Lithuania and settled in Kaunas. Their natives land near Ukmerge was nationalized by the time. As an experienced professional Fedor was recruited into the Lithuanian army in the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He lectured Navy skills in Kaunas Technical School and later founded a joint-stock company engaged in cargo sea transportation. It was the first merchant marine in Lithuania which had two vessels. In the summer of 1940 the Soviet troops occupied Lithuania and Fedor Reingard was arrested and placed in custody in the 9th Kaunas fort where he again was waiting for execution. The offensive of German troops saved him and he found himself at large. The German occupation authorities proposed to him to head a Kaunas factory if he adopts German citizenship, but he refused. Educated in the best traditions of Russian army officers he remained honest and decent to himself in any situation. He did not understand and rejected both the Soviet power and Nazi order .

In the summer of 1944 the Soviet army liberated Lithuania and Fedor Reingard realized he would be definitely executed this time. He left the country alone (the family refused to leave) and died of a heart attack in 1947 in Bavaria. According to his will, he was buried at an Orthodox cemetery. He described the horrors of the civil war and the tragic turns of his life in memoirs. The manuscript was brought to Lithuania by a Lithuanian captain and a part of the book is kept in the Maritime Museum in Klaipeda. In 2000 some of the chapters were translated into the Lithuanian language. They were published under the title Navyman, Officer, Condemned Man.

Granddaughter Natalya of Fedor Reingard was born on the eve of the war and recollected the war life in the house of her granddad by the maternity line:

— I was very little at the time. When the war broke out the father went to Russia to fight the Germans. He participated in the Kursk and Oryol battles in the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division and liberated Klaipeda region where he was several times wounded. But we did not know anything about him and lived with the granddad and grandma in a spacious house near Kaunas which the granddad built. We had a picturesque big garden planted by the granddad. Fedor Fedorovich was a strict man, but also a reasonable house master and a do-all man. I did not know what huger was during the war as the fruit and vegetable gardens fed us and not only us. The granddad lived on the upper floor and pretended not to interfere into female affairs. The mother and grandma sheltered several Jewish families in the basement. There were also Soviet soldiers who hid in the house from time to time. One of them, a Georgian, loved to play with me and said I resembled his sister. Many years later I received a present from Georgia: a silver spoon with To Natasha inscription. I also remember how together with the grandma we went through the fields to a POW camp. The grandma gave me a basket with bread. I came close to the barbed wire and put pieces of bread into stretched out hands. Naturally, there was not enough for all.

— As far as I understand, there were deep political contradictions in the family. Did they impede the life of the family?

— The granddad by maternity line was a convinced monarchist. The old-school grandma was from St. Petersburg where she received education and lived according to her outlooks. All her numerous brothers and sisters died in the Civil war between White Guards and the Red Army. The mother was not excited by the Soviet power, to put it mildly. The father joined the Communist Party during the war and responded to all mother’s remarks: “I made a deliberate decision and have no right to reject it.” In all other aspects the parents understood each other well and refrained from fanning conflicts because of personal convictions which every person has the right to have.

Affection turned into profession

After the war Leo Vladimirov worked in the republican planning committee which opened major career prospects for him. However one telephone call from the director of the Vilnius University who invited him to head the library of the institution changed everything. He immediately quit the well-paid job and headed the ineligible business. There were close to 30 confused staff who did not know what to begin with in a building with broken ceilings and ruined book stock by the Germans. The new director focused on training top quality librarians and bibliographers for the republic. Upon his initiative the university launched first a desk and in several years a department of librarians, the first in the USSR. Vladimirov compiled a training plan, gathered a team of lecturers, and himself lectured several courses in theory and history of library organization.

His main task was to restore and replenish library stock. The fate of the library of the Vilnius University which was closed by the tsar in 1832 after the 1830 Polish uprising was miserable. Most valuable books were transferred to educational establishments in Moscow, Petersburg, Kiev, Odessa. Various circumstances brought many books to Poland and Germany. Vladimirov wanted most of all to return to Vilnius the publications that belonged to the university and were kept in the Soviet Union. It was necessary to compile a preliminary list of withdrawn books for that and determine search directions. He made titanic effort and used his charm and diplomatic skills to fulfill his plans and convince those in power in Vilnius and Moscow to help.

Then Lithuanian Communist leader Antanas Sneckus supported the effort and the valuable Catechism by Martynas Mazvydas printed in 1547 was exchanged and returned from Odessa University to Lithuania. In the ’50s of the last century the family did not practically see Vladimirov as he constantly traveled to find books from Lithuania and have them returned back. It is only natural that no book keeper would voluntarily part with his stock. Vladimirov was often barred from libraries as their directors knew it was sufficient for him to just have a look at the cover page to determine the origin of the book. Thanks to his effort the Lenin library in Moscow returned such rare publications as Catechism by Mikalojus Dauksa (printed in 1595) and the only surviving copy of Francis Skaryna’s Apostle printed in Vilnius in 1525. Under Vladimirov the university book stock increased by one million printed publications. He was the first librarian who launched exchange with European countries without a single ruble from the budget.

A lesson to America

In 1964 the United Nations announced a contest to hire the director of its new library in New York. There were 18 contenders from the United States, Canada, Japan, Hungary, and other countries. The chances of Vladimirov, a Russian from Lithuania and a Communist, were slim. The requirements were strict. However Vladimirov won not only because he was fluent in six languages but mostly due to his superior professional qualities. Professional circles in the world were well aware of his noble cause of returning lost treasures back home and called him “book catcher from Vilnius”.

He worked as the director of the UN library in New York from 1964 to 1970. He began with computerizing (!) the stock and replacing manual information processing by mathematical. Even in America not everyone understood at the time the necessity of using computers for search purposes. Vladimirov was convinced electronic library search had to provide access to all those wishing not only to the source of information (references to books and magazines) but directly to the information. Many library-goers complained that it took too much time to find a reference while librarians had to sort several thousand cards a day. Besides, affiliates of the library were scattered around the world and each of them had its own book registration system. Vladimirov developed the New York library into a guiding center of all UN libraries with a single computerized information system.

After his innovations the biggest in the world Library of the US Congress got an electronic catalogue and thus became accessible for everyone. In New York Vladimirov wrote a book about pioneer printer Francis Skaryna and held an exhibition in the library devoted to the outstanding personality of Belarussian culture. He prepared essays on the history of books and libraries in Lithuania from the 15th century up to 1917 which comprised the basis of his scientific thesis. He also considered it to be his duty to develop cultural ties with Lithuanian emigrants and constantly lectured in various American universities about cultural life in Lithuania.

Back in Lithuania he found out that the post of the director of the university library was occupied. Vladimirov was offered a similar post in Moscow in the Foreign Literature Library, as well as in Minsk. But he preferred to stay in Vilnius where for many years he headed the university desk of library organization and scientific information. He modestly called himself “only a librarian” but could foresee the possibilities and horizons provided by computer technologies.

His creative legacy comprises close to 400 works in various languages and fundamental works about pioneer printers Francis Skaryna and Ivan Fedorov. In 1988 his monumental work General Book History came out. Only the first volume was printed and he worked on the second one up to the end of his life. His heirs have the manuscript but unfortunately cannot have it published because of financial problems. Several Moscow publishing houses initially agreed however later postponed the publication for unclear reasons.

He was not afraid of anything

Natalya Vladimirova recalled that her father was a fearless man and always said the truth and advocated his opinion. He told his children: “Do not be ever afraid of anything. Let others be afraid and think you have some backup”.

She remembers that the father spent all the time at his working desk and children were strictly prohibited from interfering. He was a taciturn, but joyful and witty man. If the mother complained about naughty children and jokingly suggested to lash her madcap son Yuri he always responded: “I cannot do it today. I am kind today”. In general he entrusted the mother with upbringing of two daughters and the son. There was a deep spiritual relationship and full mutual understanding between the couple.

Sometimes he teased the wife by reading Mayakovsky verses which she disliked. When he saw she was angry he switched to Pushkin. But he was very attentive to her. When his wife was hospitalized he every day told her about a new episode of Santa Barbara soap opera which was aired on TV at that time. The mother passed away five years before the father died in 1999. He could not cope with the less. It seemed to the children he continued to live with his spouse and she was always present in his undertakings and work.

It is inspiring that Leo’s grandchildren continued his cause. They grew up in international families with a mixture of Lithuanian, Russian, and Jewish blood. Natalya’s daughter Nina works in the Russian literature department of the Martynas Mazvidas Library. Other grandchildren are software engineers and experts in information which is also close to the grandfather. Under his leadership over two dozen most talented students defended their theses. At a seminar devoted to Leo Vladimirov one of his students and the head of the rare book department of the university library Ina Kazuro admitted sadly there are no people of Vladimirov’s scope, true patriots of Lithuania in the modern history of the country. It remains to wait and see. . .

Galina Afanasyeva,

for Amber Bridge

Stockholm has a suburban island called Lidingo. It is linked with the mainland by a bridge under which seagoing vessels pass. On the high western coast of the island which opens a view on the capital city there is one of the main Stockholm sights which any tourist should be blamed for not seeing. It is called Millesgorden. “Gord” is translated into Russian as farmstead. It resembles Russian “grad” or town. Etymologic kinship is not excluded as Russians and Vikings had good contacts. Milles means Carl Milles, world renowned sculptor and one of the main inhabitants of the Swedish Pantheon of Arts.

When you drive to the island across the Lidingo bridge you can see Millesgorden – the house of Milles – on your right although it is difficult as the building is far away and coalesces with the landscape. When you arrive to the farmstead it is hard to comprehend the kaleidoscope of feelings that hit you like a sea wave. Stockholm is a quiet city while life on the island is completely still. I believe it much better reflects the immediate metamorphosis taking place when you step into the temple of arts.

Like any temple Millesgorden is located on a hill that sharply cuts into the sea. There are railings at the edge saving tourists from a fall and helping them quietly admire the view. If the day is bright and the sun is shining you can imagine the Baltic, Aegean of Black Sea that wash the warm coasts of Europe. You are surrounded by statues – bronze, marble, fullsize or colossal that stand in open air surrounded by trees and bushes. Those who were in Koktebeil will definitely recall something from Maximilian Voloshin who praised the antique beauty of nature best of all.

Nip yourself to wake up and forget sweet southern voices and look at the masterpieces by a Scandinavian genius. They fill in his own museum which he created for himself and handed over to the people as a gift.

Carl Milles collected his farmstead by pieces. In 1905 he married Olga Gunner, an Austrian artist who he met in Paris in 1899. He bought a plot of land on the Herserud Mountain and the couple planned to build a house with a studio there. Construction was completed in 1908 and in the ’20s there was a possibility to buy another plot of land which bordered on the existing one. The expansion allowed the Milles couple to create a spacious natural park which anyone wishing can come to admire.

Milles for the first time thought of arranging a museum when he was in France where every “decent artist” has a duty to go to train skills, feel the atmosphere, communicate with colleagues and make acquaintances. His biographer Eric Neslund said Milles wrote in a letter to his future wife about plans to turn the Paris studio into a museum. When the couple bought land and began construction the idea was definitely there.

“The reason why I want to implement the idea despite major costs is that I want to leave something beautiful after me,” Milles wrote to a friend in the year he completed the house.

Milles for the first time thought of arranging a museum when he was in France where he thought he had a duty to go to train skills and feel the atmosphere.

Two nourishing elements for Milles

It was not occasional that Milles chose the coast. The house stands on a cliff over an abyss exactly like the villa of well-known industrialist Ernest Thiel dashed up into the sky in full compliance with Nietzsche’s imperative. The sea view offers an eternal source of ideas and inspiration for any man of arts. “You can hardly imagine how grandiose the sea is,” Milles wrote to Olga from Normandy. “I can see nothing but the blue-green sea and air. . . It is the same water which washes the coasts of America, the same waves which flow the coast of England, Spain, Portugal, the same salt as in the waters around Africa.”

Water and air are the two elements that nourished Milles. He wanted his sculptures to overcome terrestrial gravity, break free from it and levitate over the world and water. He achieved it. You get the feeling when you first see them. . .

Carl Emil Wilheim Milles was born on June 23, 1875 in a place called Lagga not far from Uppsala into a family of a military man. His actual family name was Andersson which is as common as Ivanov and Petrov in Russia. According to biographers, the father was a strict and tough man who loved arts and strived for romanticism. However grownup Milles remembered that in childhood he only feared the man.

Despite such an attitude of the son the father deserves a brief narration mostly due to his character. Poorness did not allow August Emil Sebastian Andersson finish school and like many teenagers he went to work at sea where he spent six years. He studied in free hours and back home successfully passed exams in a Stockholm male college and even made headlines.

The education exploit of the young seafarer was noticed by the Royal court of his Majesty King Carl XV: Emil Andersson was invited to the highest audience. He entered the Carlberg military school as a result. Five years later the young officer requested a transfer to serve in the French army and in July 1868 was enlisted into the Imperial Versailles Chaser Guards battalion. He then served in Algeria, participated in skirmishes with Arab tribes, and in war with Germany. He was wounded, recovered in hospital, was in German captivity and escaped. He returned to Sweden and was enlisted in the Royal Upland Regiment and married Valborg Maria Tessel, a daughter of a chemist. In 1874 his father-in-law helped him buy Erbu mansion in Lagga where future sculptor Carl Milles was born a year later. By that time they already had two-year daughter Ruth and another son, Stig, was born four years later. The mother then dies of scarlet fever. The father married Olga Setrin after some time who gave birth to three more children. The previous father-in-law was outraged by neglect to the memory of his daughter and recalled all mortgage bonds he provided for the mansion of the son-in-law. Emil Andersson had to declare himself broke. He left Erbu, retired and resettled to Goteborg.

As a complete Francophil Emil Andersson provided French education to his children. As well as food habits. He also worked to develop artistic interests in them. Milles recalled that the father put his four-six-year old children on his knees and spoke about great artists, showed reproductions of their paintings – Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante, Donatello, Verrocchio.

Small Carl had poor health and suffered from asthma and rickets which exhausted all his forces. It was difficult for him to study in school. Asthma impeded his breath when he had to read out loud, other disciplines were of no interest to him and some were even hated. For example, history which made him constantly memorize various dates. In Stockholm Milles lived in the apartment of his father’s acquaintance who did not care about his school marks and the boy was thrown upon his own resources in the studies. Quite often Carl went to the seaport in the morning to watch vessels and dream of sailing to distant countries. He talked to sailors all of who promised to take him with them but none has fulfilled the promise.

When the father learned about the son’s passion for the sea and recalled his own youth

and took the boy to a ship’s doctor for examination whether he is fit for maritime

service. The doctor said the boy was too small and weak for any work at sea.

Most of all Carl enjoyed wood cutting in school. At the age of 14 he made a violin.

However a year later he failed to produce a single sound from it. The father thought his son was silly because of bad marks. “What for am I punished with elder son an idiot!” Milles heard him telling his new wife.

In the final end Emil decided to send his son to a carpenter who had a workshop in Stockholm. Carl had to go to furniture clients, boil glue, polish wooden surfaces, and shop for food. At the same time he went to a technical evening school. He designed furniture there, sculptured in plaster which helped him make a new step – enter an artistic-industrial college.

Upon graduation in 1897 and receiving a scholarship of 200 kronas Carl decided to go to Paris. By that time he already worked independently and together with a friend from the technical school was engaged in refined artistic cutting of oak stair posts for a villa in the capital city and made small wooden sculptures which he sold to local jewelers. He was attracted to Paris by the dreams of creative future and the desire to break free into a big world from family bonds and poor living conditions.

Water and air are the two elements that nourished Milles. He wanted his sculptures to overcome terrestrial gravity, break free from it and levitate over the world and water .

How Andersson became Milles

At that time France was the world center of sculpture. Numerous artists worked there and even more graduated from various artistic schools. When Milles arrived in Paris everybody there spoke about Auguste Rodin, a contradicting genius of the time and an artistic titan today. The destiny favored the young Swede and he soon met the master and became his assistant. The acquaintance gave a lot to the beginning sculptor. Rodin had numerous projects but did not do the rough stone cutting himself and entrusted it to disciples and assistants. It was the first assignment of Carl. However it was not by chance that he was invited to the studio. Rodin saw his works and liked them. He himself did not become a sculptor at once and in young years earned his living as a decorator, including at the Sevres porcelain factory. He won recognition in mature age.

Like Milles Rodin neglected schoolwork (although the comparison should be vice versa as Rodin was older than Milles when they met). He was not interested in anything but drawing. In the final end he convinced his father to send him to a school that trained artists, jewelers, decorators and the like. The skills he acquired helped him make both ends meet much longer than Milles earned a living as wood cutter. However should we think about bad marks, neglected schoolwork, torn pants and bonks when we admire The Thinker, The Kiss, Orpheus, the Man and Pegasus? They are only the undercoat for magnificent works.

Speaking about Milles’ life in Paris we have to explain his family name which differs from the original of his father and relatives. Carl Andersson himself invented the new name. Mille was the short name for Emil and kids were called “Milles barn” or the children of Mille. In France the young Swede communicated with men of arts and wanted to look French. The generalized Milles barn phrase fitted properly for it as it sounded French. He moved the word stress to the second syllable and called himself Carl Milles to the end of his life.

Milles won acclaim as a sculptor for the monument to the regent of Sweden, Sten Sture, the fighter for independence related to secession from the Kalmar Union. In 1471 he routed the Danish army of King Christian I in the battle of Brunkeberg. In 1871, during celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the event, it was decided to perpetuate the memory of the outstanding personality. However thirty years had to pass for decisions to begin implementing.

A contest for the monument was announced in 1901. Carl Milles who lived in Paris at the time decided to bid and compete with three other sculptors. Next year the commission announced its decision and Milles’ project was the last in the list. It was a failure and there was no use to argue. However “broad public” of students supported Milles and said the decision was unfair as Milles’ project was the best. They accused commission members of bias and demanded to review contest results. A new commission was appointed and awarded the victory to Milles and ordered a sketch.

It took a long time for the stone Sten Sture to emerge in the center of Uppsala. Twenty-three years passed. The monument was unveiled in 1925. Wisecrackers joked: too much stone, too little Sture. In Swedish “sten” means stone. Anyway the monument brought first acclaim to Milles.

Another major work was the sculpture of the most distinguished Swedish King Gustav Vasa, the reformist liberator. In contrast to other sculptures Milles produced a colored statue. His wife Olga did the painting. A plaster sketch was made in 1905. At that time the construction of the Nordic Museum was underway. It is another major sight of Stockholm which is more impressive by the exterior of a magnificent castle rather than by the interior .

It is actually a natural history museum. As natural history is of interest to schoolchildren and experts the museum does not attract major tourist flows. Architect Isaac Gustav Clason was excited by Milles’ Vasa and wanted it to stay in the center hall and be there on the opening day of the museum. He asked the sculptor to do that.

When the doors of the museum opened in 1907 the visitors were welcomed by great

six-meter high polychrome king whose name is very popular in the country. He sat on a golden throne mounted on a big pedestal dressed in gala gold-red attire. One hand rested on a sword while the other showed a fist to confirm his serious intentions. The king was made of plaster which is non-durable material. It was suggested to make the same Vasa from wood, preferably oak as its lasts for centuries. However the plans demanded major financing which was difficult to find. The wooden monarch replaced the plaster one only in 1925. Today he continues to welcome visitors in the castle that is also a museum which can be quite disappointing for the king.

Personal exhibition held in London’s Tate in 1927 was an important landmark for Milles which brought him international fame. Its repercussions went as far as overseas.

Creativity as eternity

Milles visited the United States for the first time in 1929. Biographers said he and his wife considered emigrating there and resettled in 1931. The decision was prompted by the warm welcome to the sculptor in America, on the one hand, and Olga’s dislike of Sweden where she lacked comfort, on the other. The couple settled down in Blumfield Hills suburb of Detroit. The Cranbrook Foundation artistic school there offered Milles to head the sculpture desk. He worked there for 20 years. In 1945 Carl and Olga obtained U.S. citizenship, but in the ’50s decided to go back to Europe. This time they chose Rome for residence (which is only natural for a sculptor if he does not plan to live in his native country). Grateful Cranbrook Foundation provided them an apartment with a studio and promised to pay for it up to the end of their life.

From 1945 the Milles visited Millesgorden mostly in summer. By that time the house, the park and other buildings were handed over to the people as a gift. It was their northern Hellas with naiads, tritons, Orpheus, sea shells, playful dolphins and other “wave-runners”.

Flight, ascent from the earth were likely the main distinguishing traits of Milles style.

The change in the initial Milles style was over by 1913. At least art experts and biographers say that. He stuck to strict and direct lines before, but later his works acquired traits of Greek antiquity. He specifically stressed the silhouette and raised the sculptures high into the air . Flight, ascent from the earth were likely the main distinguishing traits of Milles style. If you look at the angels with musical instruments sculptural group in Millesgorden you can see that the winged figures have only touched columns with toes for a second and will jump up again as butterflies to the air to play pipes and tubes.

I am personally most impressed by Milles’ sculpture Man and Pegasus which stands in the Palace Park of Malmo. The horse and the man are united in audacious flight to the home of Gods – Olympus. There are not a horse and a horseman, but two equal creatures flying close to each other. The man only slightly touches Pegasus’ wing with his foot while the horse touches the pedestal with its wing. There are no other supports which creates an absolute illusion of a flight. As many others the sculpture is mounted high above ground and people see both figures in the sky. In bright weather the blue sky personifies eternity .

Milles’ love for water is seen in abounding fountains the design of which is linked to water. Most famous are the Aganippe fountain named after an ancient Greek mythology nymph which Milles made for the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and Orpheus fountain standing at the entrance to the Concert Hall in Stockholm where Nobel Prizes are awarded. The sculptural group of the fountain comprises nine statues. The face of one of it resembles Beethoven which is not accidental as for Milles the composer personified artistic genius to which he strived himself. Some of the critics called Orpheus “a sculptural expression of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony”. They say Milles was particularly pleased with the praise.

He was extremely exuberant in creativity. To understand everything you do not have to go to all cities and countries where his sculptures stand. It is enough to come to Millesgorden. He is buried in the museum he created himself. Narration about Milles will not be complete if we forget one not very noble corner of his inside world – political views which manifested themselves in good attitude to German Nazism and Italian Fascism.

Milles’ biographers began to speak about that side of his life only in the ’90s. Before that they bypassed it either because of unwillingness to offend relatives and close kin or due to friendly relations with Milles. Now there is a series of research of political and ideological outlooks of the artist. The author of the most complete biography Eric Neslund explains Milles’ sympathies to Nazism and Fascism by their attitude to artistic esthetics. Well, experts have to decide whether it is true or not.

I do not know what Carl Milles said and whether he said anything at all about Nazism after the end of the war when the world learned the full horror of its crimes. Anyway, it is his personal life, a trait of character, the line of fate. . .

Mikhail Busnyuk,

for Amber Bridge

Your Eminence, secular people often view your position in the Patriarchate as a foreign minister. Is there a certain misunderstanding? What are the powers of the DECR chairman?

The powers of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate traditionally include the whole sphere of external church activity. First and foremost, it is the sphere of interorthodox Church relations and brotherly contacts with autocephalous (independent) local Orthodox Churches which number 14 today, besides the Russian Orthodox Church. I am pleased to say that contacts between local Orthodox Churches have intensified of late, and the convocation of a Pan-Orthodox Council, which raises numerous questions, is currently on the agenda. Our task is to ensure strict compliance with the consensus principle at the Council so that the interests of all churches are taken into account and that the Council should safeguard against new divisions.

The second guideline of the Department’s work is inter-Christian relations, i.e. dialogue with other Christian confessions – the ancient Eastern Churches (such as the Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Churches), Catholics, Anglicans, and Protestants. unfortunately, the centuries of living in division have brought about major differences between these confessions and the Orthodox Church in theological issues and regarding the challenges of the modern secular world. Our Church has never worked and does not work toward certain unification with heterodox confessions at the expense of compromises in religious issues. On the contrary, we use inter-Christian dialogue as a means to evidence the truth of the Orthodoxy. At the same time, together with our heterodox brothers we look for points of contact in such issues as morality and the common expression of Christians’ faith in the face of growing secularism. It turns out that in these issues we have more in common with representatives of the communities that have kept ties with the ancient church tradition than with liberal confessions.

Another sphere of responsibility of the Department has expanded of late – outreach to compatriots abroad. It envisages holding various congresses and symposiums and interaction at various levels with our compatriots who are dispersed throughout the world.

The Department also pays much attention to the problem of persecution of Christians in various countries of the world and to interreligious dialogue, which becomes specifically important in such a situation.

You took monastic vows and began your ministry in Lithuania. How did the country and its people influence the young priest?

I have very warm recollections of the years I spent in Lithuania. They were both my first experience of monastic life, my first experience in service before the altar of God, and the first ministerial experience. I served there for nearly five years. I was a monk at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius for 18 months. Then I was appointed a parish priest in a village where ten people gathered for the Sunday liturgy and thirty people for Easter.

At Epiphany I toured the neighboring villages in a horse-drawn cart or by hitching a ride to sprinkle holy water on the believers’ homes. I visited many people who lived in abject poverty.

I ministered in kaunas in 1990-1991. It was the time of the breakup of the USSR. Lithuania proclaimed independence and stated its readiness to defend it. Troops entered Vilnius and occupied the television center. There were fatalities among the civilians. I was asked to make an address on kaunas television which still remained in Lithuanians’ hands, and I agreed. At that time, I had no thoughts about any political interests; the most important thing was to prevent a group of people from committing bloodshed and save the lives of others. I spoke on television and urged the soldiers not to shoot at unarmed people in case they were given such an order. Thank God, we managed to avoid further bloodshed.

It was a very interesting time, the time of gradual emergence of freedoms, including freedoms for religious life and preaching. In kaunas one of my first missionary activities was to visit the nearest Russian school, where I volunteered to teach children. At first the school administration was apprehensive. I was told there had been no such lessons in the Soviet school and that it was not possible. But one day, the school director went to the church to baptize her granddaughter. I offered her a “bargain”: I baptize her granddaughter and she lets me conduct at least one lesson in any class. This is what we agreed to. I conducted one lesson, then another and then other classes asked me to teach. Eventually, I took up all the ten classes of the school. That is, aside from a minister’s workweek, I was fully employed as a schoolteacher. Then I had invitations from other schools. I quickly understood that I could not cope alone and imparted my knowledge of Scripture to my parishioners, who followed suit and began to teach at schools. A very interesting time it was. I have very warm recollections of it today, and whenever I visit Lithuania, I feel as though I am in my homeland.

What is the Russian diaspora and the Orthodox Church situation in Lithuania?

The Orthodox tradition in Lithuania is 800 years old. In modern Lithuania, it is the Russian-speaking population that largely professes Orthodox Christianity, in the first instance Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians, so it is well-represented in the large cities such as Vilnius, Klaipeda and Visaginas. However, there are also Orthodox Lithuanians, and some Orthodox churches conduct services in Lithuanian. According to the census, Lithuania has more than 130,000 Orthodox believers.

There is the diocese of Vilna and Lithuania in the republic, currently led by Archbishop Innokenty. In 1996, the diocese was officially registered as “the Orthodox Church in Lithuania.” It comprises 50 parishes divided into three deaneries. As far as I know, the diocese is not short of priests. It runs a monastery and a convent. Some schools have Sunday classes for children from Orthodox families, and a number of Russian-language schools offer religion as a subject. The diocese takes care of the preservation and renovation of churches, and receives annual subsidies from the state for these tasks.

An overwhelming majority of Russians in the republic – who number over 200,000 – have Lithuanian citizenship. It is the only Baltic republic which adopted the so-called zero option of the citizenship law, i.e. those who were resident on the territory of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic were granted citizenship in the new Lithuania.

The persecution of believers and the church came to an end in the late 1980s. When you were dean of the Annunciation Cathedral in Kaunas, Sigitas Tamkevicius was rector of the local Catholic seminary who had recently returned from prison and exile. Please tell us about him.

I first met Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevicius in 1989, when he was appointed rector of the kaunas theological seminary. I was a young priest then. I asked Father Sigitas where he had been before, meaning his previous parish and post. He answered, “I have been in prison.” In those years, prisoners of conscience, including clerics, were returning from prisons and penal colonies. Tamkevicius was one of them. He was arrested in 1983 for conducting religious education and secret activities aimed at protecting believers’ rights, and spent five years in Perm and Mordovian penal colonies.

In the new historical conditions, Archbishop Tamkevicius is continuing his uncompromising defense of the freedom of faith and the Christian principles of public morals in his country; he tirelessly urges the powerful ones of this world to heed the voice of conscience in making decisions and do as required by public good, not selfish interests. Many Lithuanians take him seriously.

The first ever visit of Russia’s First Hierarch to Poland took place in August 2012. Although 600,000 Orthodox believers live there, it wasn’t merely a pastoral visit. Regrettably, Russian and European public opinion was focused on less significant events. How do you think relations between the peoples of Russia and Poland might develop in the future?

I cannot agree that Russian and European public opinion ignored His Holiness Patriarch Kirill’s visit to Poland. Many large mass media outlets reported the event. For example, the popular channel Euronews closely monitored the Russian Patriarch’s first visit to Poland. It was broadly discussed by public circles in Russia, Poland and other states, and mostly drew positive comments.

In my opinion, the positive dynamic in Russian-Polish relations that have begun to show in the recent times will continue. It is gratifying that the Russian Orthodox Church made its contribution to the rapprochement between the two peoples. During his visit to Poland, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, together with the President of the Polish Episcopal Conference Archbishop Jozef Michalik, made a joint statement to the peoples of Russia and Poland reflecting our common Christian approach to bilateral relations. This historic address became an important contribution to the normalization of Russian-Polish relations which have a long record of strife, misunderstanding, armed conflicts and religious disputes.

We sometimes hear questions and even rebukes regarding what gives the two Churches the right to act as peacekeepers and offer ways of overcoming mutual mistrust. Both Russia and Poland are Slav countries with deep roots in Christianity. We are very close ethnically and culturally. I’m deeply convinced that spiritual affinity is the only solid foundation upon which we can build a productive and open relationship between the peoples of our countries. For its part, the Russian Orthodox Church is ready to make all efforts towards maintaining peace and accord between Russians and Poles.

The persecution of Christians is one of the most acute problems of the modern world. News about “legal” incarcerations and reckless murders is reported daily. The well-being of the North and the Baltic region against this background gives no reason for complacency. Yet it seems our societies do not wish to hear about the persecution of Christian believers all over the world, although the public quickly shows its indignation at other matters.

What is the cause of this ambiguity, this double morality? Is it aggressive secularism or the relationships between Christians?

There are several reasons here. Firstly, it is Europe’s loss of its Christian identity and the aggressive intrusion of secular notions into society. This has also affected certain Christian creeds and eroded their notions of traditional values. As a result, we encounter double standards: there is the lobbying of extreme liberalism on the one hand, and deliberate unwillingness to hear about the infringement upon Christians’ rights on the other. Consequently, the press deliberately distorts or suppresses the facts concerning the persecution of Christians. The Syrian conflict can serve as an example, with western mass media conducting an information war and preferring to deliberately suppress the problem of the persecution and murder of Christians by militants from various radical groups. Tens of thousands of Christians find themselves in a humanitarian catastrophe; many are killed by the most brutal methods, and acts of terror against them continue unabated. The West prefers to keep silent about it. But there are still some honest reporters who try to tell the truth, otherwise we would know nothing about the fate of Syrian Christians. As an example, I would like to mention Russia 24 channel reporter Anastasia Popova, whom the president recently awarded with a medal for bravery. May God let the West have more such honest and courageous journalists.

In the autumn of 2012, part of the Russian public expressed serious concern about the situation regarding a Russian-Sudanese family in Finland. Regrettably, our domestic routine, with tuberculosis and venereal diseases in children, teen drug abuse and homelessness, does not often become a subject of special attention on the part of the society. In this connection how does the Church feel about this political and legal initiative popularly known as “juvenile justice?”

Juvenile justice has been broadly discussed in society recently. The Church does not stand aside from these discussions. It is concerned about the regrettable overregulation of parent-child relations by government bodies which may dismantle the family as a social institution. There were cases of unjustified interference in family life under the pretext of protecting children’s rights.

The advocates of juvenile justice emphasize that introducing this system for underage offenders is quite justified, as it gives up repressive measures of influence upon children and returns them to the fold. Adequate programs allegedly correct the behavior of “problem” children more effectively than penal colonies for juvenile delinquents which leave them branded for life.

Yet it is right to say that a family cannot live in constant fear that somebody might come and take away their child, for example under the pretext that the standard of living in a family does not meet the needs of the child.

Recently, the phrase “creative class” has come into the vernacular, meaning a certain stratum of citizens with superior quality of thinking compared with the rest, “non-creative” Russians. Sadly, quite a few people take this formula seriously, including with respect to themselves. While taking an ironic view of this, we cannot but ask a quite serious question: what is the measure to test a modern person’s ability to build his and his country’s future?

This measure is responsibility. Building the future of one’s country or family is only possible for a person who feels responsibility for this future, in the first place responsibility before God. As St Paul said “… whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him” (Colos-sians 1, 16-17). Addressing the contemporary representatives of the “ruling class,” St Gregory the Theologian wrote : “It is with Christ that you command, with Christ that you govern, from Him that you have received the sword.”

He who assumes responsibility for the future of others should be gifted with special sense of self-sacrifice and special self-denial. Public activities and politics should not be an end in itself or a breeding ground to espouse pride, greed or other vices. St. John Chrysostom says: “A true king is he who conquers anger and jealousy and voluptuousness and subjects everything to the laws of God and does not allow the passion for pleasure to prevail in his soul.”

The building of the future can only be entrusted to him who makes public expediency and social good the cornerstone of his actions, for whom high ideals are not merely a pleasant-sounding phrase; they manifest themselves even in seemingly insignificant matters and daily “trifles,” such as everyday behavior, relations with neighbors, conscientious work, and observing the rules of communal life, not to mention observing the laws of the land.

All construction begins with the foundation. A foolish man builds his house upon the sand. A wise man builds his house upon the rock (see Matthew 7, 24-27). Jesus is the stone… “the only one who can save people.” (Acts 4, 11).

The future can be likened to our common home. The happiness of each individual and humanity as a whole depends on what comprises its foundation.

Last Easter Pavel Lungin’s film The Conductor was shown in Russia. It tells the story of guest performances by a group of musicians in Jerusalem, where the first night of the St Matthew Passion oratorio was to take place. The film sets the Gospel story of suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to music which you had written for it. What place does music have in your life and your mission?

After taking monastic vows I was sure I had closed the musical chapter of my life once and for all. I was rather radical when I was twenty. I assumed I had given up music for good. But “man supposes and God disposes.” At some point the period of radicalism seemed to pass, and I gradually began to enjoy once again listening to classical music. However, I never occupied myself with it actively. It was only in 2006 that something suddenly changed in me and I began to compose music.

To me, music reflects the state of the soul and is an important medium for conveying the good news of the Church. It is a special language which can convey the loftiest feelings and which does not require special training in order to be understood – it is sufficient to have a soul and a heart open to these feelings. The language of music gives people the opportunity to communicate at the profoundest level where words are no longer necessary.

Music is one of the forms of sermon and mission. I use it as a means to convey the good news of the Gospel. Bringing home to people the image of live Christ was my main objective when I was writing “St Matthew Passion.“

Now we have a question about Petersburg, our northern Alexandria. What significance does this city have for the Christian Church? What significance does it hold for European civilization?

Petersburg was conceived by Peter the Great as a European capital. It is known that in his time everything of Russian origin was regarded as obsolete, not up to the spirit of time and Enlightenment standards – almost in the same way as nowadays. In this sense, the new capital in the beginning of the 18th century broke off from old Russia and its Byzantine heritage. The architecture of St Petersburg, including its churches, tried to emulate the best European style – English, Dutch and German at first and then French and Italian. It was an to endeavour to Europeanize Orthodoxy, with the view of distancing Russia from the prevailing Byzantine heritage in Eastern Christianity. Peter the Great and his followers seemed to entertain hopes of creating a new and original Russian Orthodoxy.

It is obvious today that this attempt was only partially successful, because Italian patterns in church architecture and music were alien to our culture. Although they have lasted for three centuries, they are increasingly re-appraised in a critical manner. Churches are ubiquitously built in old Russia style, and it is only rarely that European classicism is used, for example, if so required by architectural ensemble. I dare to assume that the “Petersburg period” in Russian history has come to an end.

On the other hand, Petersburg remains our favorite northern capital. To my mind, it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It continues to be a bridge between Russia and the West. Petersburg is associated with Dostoyevsky and Pushkin works. I believe Pushkin’s words from the Bronze Horseman about “a window to Europe” can carry not only geographical, but also cultural meaning. Petersburg became such a window for Russia.

This issue of Amber Bridge is to be published in mid-March, i.e. by Forgiveness Sunday which falls on March 17, New Style, this year. It will be read in all the countries of the Baltic region. What would be Your Eminence’s final thoughts to the readers of Amber Bridge?

Forgiveness is a basic principle of being, by which a person should live daily, on the strength of his faith in the All-Forgiving God. As a result of the “humanization” which has taken place in the past century and a half, the virtue of forgiveness has been stripped of religious substance and harnessed solely personal relationships. Thus in practical terms it has become a mere means to an end. Simultaneously its interpretation has changed: whereas people used to forgive each other solely “for the sake of God”, i.e. selflessly, by the commandment to love, they now do it out from a “humanistic” perspective; a person may be undecided as to the extent to which he should forgive his neighbor or if he should forgive at all.

I would like to wish the readers of your magazine to consider the religious meaning of forgiveness ahead of Forgivness Sunday. I am sure that Christian forgiveness “for the sake of God” will open up to us a far broader horizon in improving relations with our neighbors – family members, relatives, friends and colleagues. It will be a decisive step on the way to the God, who cannot be known without forgiving our enemies, ill-wishers and those who have insulted or hurt us.

I wish God’s help to all Amber Bridge magazine readers

Metropolitan Hilarion

It is true the wording is not easy and purely legal. All is simple regarding state property management. The talk is not about the property of the agency as a state organization. This property is very modest. But we manage our main resource – centers of science and culture abroad. They number 59 at present plus 8 affiliates. There are also representatives in 18 countries. Thus we have footholds in 77 countries of the world. We inherited some of the centers from the Soviet Union. They were created as part of the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies and survived the difficult ’90s when many of them were axed. The survivors and the newly created ones are operating successfully to that or another extent today.

I say “that or another extent” because not everything we plan and design can be implemented in the modest framework of our capabilities. Naturally we would like our centers to be equipped up-to-date and constantly feature in cultural event posters in their respective cities so that they are popular and in demand.

It is not the wish only of our agency. I will quote Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev who said at the traditional meeting of Rossotrudnichestvo representatives and heads of science and culture centers last September in Moscow: ” you have first to think about the contents of your work and its new forms – make the centers modern, multi-functional and useful for various social and age groups and for everyone who is interested in Russia. Efficiency criteria shall be concrete and practical indicators, such as the number of people studying Russian language and involved in cultural exchanges, the number of courses, the quality of information resources and Internet sites”.

It all demands both attention and intensive work in the center and on-site and finances to hire Russian language teachers on a long-term basis, send high-quality artistic groups and exhibitions, integrate the centers to the maximum into new realities of the information epoch. u nfortunately, so far we have sometimes to admit that we lack money even for the renovation of the centers. Perception of our performance also depends on the exterior. The theater begins from the wardrobe, they say. It is a pity that Russian “cultural embassies” sometimes look poorly in contrast to modern centers of other countries. Russia has a lot what to boast of in the cultural sphere. We have only to properly cut and illuminate the diamond.

We hope that today when the image of Russia abroad and its “soft force” enjoys much high-level attention there will be progress on the avenue. It is pleasing that in many countries people want to study the Russian language, visit our exhibitions, applaud our actors, communicate, study, read and watch. It means our efforts will not be futile.

These are the services which our agency provides. They are the services to the state in promoting its image and culture. The services can be also used by everyone abroad who is interested in Russia and naturally by our compatriots. For them it is an important and necessary possibility to maintain live contacts with the cultural environment in which they grew up and which most of them want to preserve for their children.

The work of Rossotrudnichestvo in the Baltic Sea region and in the North of Europe differs in intensity. Somewhere it is everyday effort while in other places it is ad hoc. What would you list as an achievement in the region and what do you think has to be improved?

In the Baltic Sea region and the European north we have permanent footholds in Germany, Poland, Denmark, Finland where our science and culture centers operate. They hold exhibitions (only in Helsinki there were 39 exhibitions in 2012) and performances of Russian actors, as well as master classes, Russian language courses, cinema shows (say, in Gdansk Russian and Soviet movies are shown four times a month). Unfortunately, we still do not have an office in Sweden and Norway and in Baltic countries. The reason is not only insufficient efforts of Rossotrudnichestvo. On the contrary, our center in Copenhagen tries to cover neighboring Scandinavian countries. It held events last year in Malmo and Gothenburg, as well as in the Norwegian capital city.

In some cases problems with our presence in the country are caused by a lack of funds, but in some cases – by clear and unconcealed rejection by local authorities of Russian cultural centers.

As the talk is exclusively about cultural offices in countries with big Russian-speaking communities we cannot but view such rejection as a politically motivated and unfriendly act of authorities in corresponding countries aimed not only against Russia, but their own people as well.

The fifty-nine countries where our centers operate can confirm they pose no risk to national statehood, but the mutual benefit from cultural presence (as it always builds on reciprocity) is evident. I am confident that time will put everything in place and Russian centers of science and culture will open in all countries of the region because an additional channel of bilateral cultural dialogue is necessary not only for Russia and Rossotrudnichestvo but mostly to our people who should not suffer from prejudice and phobias of various politicians.

Russia currently presides in the Council of the Baltic Sea States. It is common knowledge that the CBSS is one of the most successful institutions of regional cooperation. They said the best is the enemy of the good. How can the format become more efficient?

Rossotrudnichestvo is not engaged on the platform, and it is a pity. Cultural dimension of regional cooperation provides additional possibilities for involving a maximum number of people in various countries into dialogue projects.

The Council of the Baltic Sea States is definitely an example of successful regional cooperation and I see good prospects of its growth and development on various guidelines. I do not believe the best is the enemy of the good in this case. Any project should be adapted, firstly, to the realities of the information epoch and the emergence of new communication platforms and formals, and, secondly, to the changing needs of the people. For example, enhanced economic cooperation between countries often results in increased demand for the study of corresponding languages – we noted a growth in the number of those wishing to study the Russian language in Baltic countries and we deem it necessary to react to the trends by launching new specialized courses and providing other opportunities.

In April 2013 in the framework of Russian CBSS presidency St. Petersburg will host a forum of non-governmental organizations of the Baltic Sea region. Human rights will be a major issue. The Russian Federation has begun to pay more attention of late to the protection of the rights of its citizens who live or stay abroad. Which problems does Rossotrudnichestvo resolve in this aspect?

Protection of the rights of Russian citizens abroad is a priority task of the Russian foreign ministry as the talk is about decisions lying in the sphere of the state policy. The Fund to support and protect compatriots abroad began to operate last year. Its task is to provide assistance in resolving legal issues faced by compatriots in other countries.

The mission of Rossotrudnichestvo is to satisfy cultural needs of Russians and representatives of other peoples of Russia abroad. Therefore, our centers are in constant contact with associations of compatriots and sometimes even act as a kind of cultural or family clubs for them. They hold meetings, children’s parties, and amateur concerts. Maybe the work lacks the necessary scale which we can boast of in performance reports. But for many people outside Russia it is important to have such places of communication and leisure and therefore we shall continue to develop them and upgrade the quality of the format.

The so-called cross-year of Russia in Germany and Germany in Russia is taking place in the same chronological framework as the Russian presidency in the CBSS. One of the recent issues of the Amber Bridge carried an interview with British historian Dominic Lieven who said that “out of all European nations the Germans are most balanced about their history.” Experts noted disappointment over German-Russian relations circulating in German society. What can Russia bring to the relations in order to add a positive and optimistic mood to them?

Cross-years of Russia with other countries are truly large-scale and popular events which allow to hold a massive presentation of the country abroad. Rossotrudnichestvo is actively engaged in such projects. In particular, last year we prepared and held the International children’s forum It Is Our World in Bonn, the national culture festival Russian Constellation in Berlin, and the 3rd international student forum in the German capital in October in the framework of the year of Russia in Germany. In 2013 we shall participate in the year of Russia in the Netherlands and we hope the level of events will not be lower than in Germany.

I believe that despite all possibilities provided by social networks and new means of communication such big “live” events continue to be vital as they provide a possibility to a big number of people to dive into the immense cultural space of Russia without leaving their home country.

It is very important and fruitful in periods when there is a feeling of a certain cooling in relations or mutual interest. We can speak about some disappointment in German society regarding Russia, but it is mostly conditioned by the tone of the media coverage of domestic Russian developments. It is based on assessments of a narrow circle of people from Russian political and public life.

It is like in Soviet times when our people learned news about the West through assessments of the Communist party leaders. As a result, it boiled down to endless large-scale protests, strikes and sufferings of the working people. Definitely all the mentioned events took place but like in the coverage of modern Russian realities abroad it was not the whole truth. It is saddening because it is the reason for opinions and prejudice.

We also like to lament and paint everything in darker colors than it is in reality. It is our national trait. We have to see more good things as the authors of the private project http://www.sdelanounas.ru are doing. Every day they say what has been built, opened or produced in Russia. It is important not only for foreigners but for us as well.

Outside perception is not always based on fair assessments of Russia. You can differ on what the girls from Pussy Riot band did and on subsequent court verdict and sentence. But when everybody speaks about it emotionally and does not even recall over three million Russians who queued several nights to touch the Christian relic – the Virgin Mary’s Belt – I believe it is an information bias. Those indignant at the sentence speak in each European newspaper.

Those indignant at the punk-prayer are not heard or seen although they definitely include a majority of the mentioned three million Russians. There is an important justice principle – аudiatur et altera pars (let the other side speak out). I believe there should be a balance in the media and then we shall be able to speak about objectivity and the absence of bias.

To avoid prejudice and positions based on secondary sources we have to create as many as possible direct forms of public dialogue. In contrast to the USSR which tried to hide its realities from a foreign eye and resorted to propaganda modern Russia wants to have its developments covered objectively to the maximum. The Russian image abroad is currently worse that the true situation in the country. We want people to see our life themselves without beautification and distortions and make conclusions based on personal impressions. Therefore Russia has been insisting for decades on visa-free travel with EU countries. So far we have not received a positive answer from our partners. Besides, some Baltic countries deliberately impede the exchange of cultural centers and erect obstacles to Russian language studies. It is not Russia which creates barriers for intercultural and public dialogue. That cannot but cause concern.

The best remedy for disappointment for Germans and any other societies is in increased communications. Come, meet, and listen not only to those who say habitual things for your ear. Open various Russia for yourself and you will have less disappointments and more benefits for all. Any difficult dialogue is better than two monologues.

Many countries, including most influential and wealthy, use national and territorial branding technologies to build up and enhance the image of the country. There are numerous disputes about the technologies, there are pro and con arguments. What is the Russian position?

Today the image of any country comprises an important asset in international affairs. It is sometimes weightier than political and economic weight. Therefore, I believe nobody is still deciding whether to promote the image or not. Everyone is working to position himself in the best way before other countries. All that is the so-called “soft force” of a country – to acquire supporters abroad through attractiveness, not force.

Whether it is necessary to resort to branding technologies or act differently (e.g. by advocating your ideolog y and values, spreading your language and mass culture products, etc.) shall be decided by each country independently proceeding from its resources. Most countries have their national brands which promote their image. Everybody knows Italian fashion and design, French wines, Swiss watches, German quality, English football, and Chinese cuisine. The Russians have discovered Turkish resorts. They bring major benefits to that country which is also interested in maintaining good relations with Russia. It is a two-way traffic.

There is nothing bad if Russia reminds the others about its ballet, music, and literature (Anna Karenina is screened with success today). If our country continues to be associated with the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral, high-quality vodka and outstanding musicians, and immense territory for tourism it will be only good for it. The task is to expand the range of associations. Let new names of writers and film directors appear in it, as well as new geographic names – Sochi, Skolkovo, Russky Island, and new faces in all spheres – e.g. Buranovo Grannies.

It is not the main issue how the Russian branding (or re-branding) be technically implemented. We naturally have what to show and tell to the world. Besides, there are up to 30 million Russian-speaking compatriots abroad. Over 250 million people speak Russian in the world (by the number of people in Europe – from the Atlantic to the Urals – who say Russian is their native language it is the number one with a major lead). Russia occupies the biggest territory on the planet and I believe it will never lack attention. But we would like to have a benevolent attention aimed at dialogue and friendship. The public and the state have to take effort for that. They have to work together, not only the government and Rossotrudnichestvo. We have to remember that each of us carries the image of the country when he communicate with foreigners, goes on holidays or to study abroad.

Each Monday the Voice of Russian radio station airs the Talk with Konstantin Kosachev program. It is a strange role for a high-ranking official. Do you have any feedback?

It may be a strange role for a government official, but it does not mean the mission is wrong. Firstly, I always considered myself to be a public politician, not just an official or apparatchik. Major experience of communicating with my voters in Chuvashia from where I was thrice elected to the State Duma which I know well and love helped me a lot. Secondly, radio offers a good format from messaging your ideas to a big number of people and getting acquainted with interesting interlocutors. May be I am abusing office to a certain extent as I use my position to inviting valuable and respected guests to the broadcast. I am sincerely happy every time when I succeed and when I hear positive response to the program.

Naturally, the response is not always positive. You cannot avoid criticism (but if people disagree it means they listen to you which is also important) because people have different views. What is clear for me may be seen by another person completely differently. It is also important to look at clear things from a different point of view.

Radio, TV and printed media are the so-called non-contact formats. They are definitely necessary however the future (and likely the present) is with contact formats and platforms where live communication goes. We sometimes lack interactivity and do not always involve in the circle of sympathizers of our country abroad as many people as possible.

Rossotrudnichestvo annually implements a program of trips to Russia by young scientists, journalists, politicians, and public figures – those who we call young public opinion leaders (last year 500 people visited our country and this year we hope to raise the number to 650). We work to arrange interesting meetings and acquaintances for the guests, discussions and visits, and we are pleased to hear and read their response confirming how much their opinion of Russia has changed under the impression of what they saw with their own eyes, of their personal communication. So far it may be a drop in the sea, but an important drop.

Last year the Russian Historic Society was reestablished. Academic ties of scholars in various countries intensify, including the Baltic Sea region. International educational projects expand. The Baltic Civilization Institute at the Amber Bridge Fund contributes to the processes. What do you think are the most vital tasks in the sphere?

First and foremost, it is rapprochement of positions of scholars and experts and the public of various countries in their attitude to the past of the region and Europe in general. Unfortunately, in the past decades we witnessed the renaissance of politicized historic issues which in many countries were involved in the political and ideological context. As a result, various reciprocal claims emerged, the renaissance of old hard feelings was artificially encouraged under the cover of new chauvinistic self-conscience, the opinion of minorities was ignored, and explicit nationalists came to power.

Leave history to historians – the task is important not for governments, but for societies. Schoolbooks which our children study are also important. It is horrifying to read numerous things which children are taught in neighboring countries when the talk is about the role of Russia and Russians in their history. The surviving obsessions of parents look from the pages of the schoolbooks rather than real history. They will hardly teach their children to love their native land through provoking hatred to other peoples. This is weakness, not strength, according to me. I believe rapprochement of curricula in schools and institutes can constitute important mission for all of us as we can lay the foundation for relationship between future generations by that.

A personal question in the end. You have many ties with Sweden. According to available information in Internet, had it not been for the Soviet rules you would have been born in Stockholm. How do you perceive Sweden and Nordic countries in general?

It is true that in different political realities I could have been born in Sweden. Nevertheless I partially feel myself a Scandinavian as my childhood passed there as well as my first professional steps. The region will be always close to me no matter what government position I occupy.

I perceive it as a region of highly intellectual, original and self-sufficient people who, like Russians, are not pampered by much sun and other southern life bonuses, but succeeded to build up life on their peninsula to the envy of others – both politically, economically and socially which is confirmed by top places in international ratings.

Scandinavia for me is a region which surprisingly resembles Russia. The space, forests, exciting beauty of the North – everything is present in Russia and in Scandinavian countries. I believe we have what to borrow from the experience of our northwestern neighbors in how to preserve the wealth and treasure what nature gave us. It would be good for the Russians to acquire some Scandinavian mentality. It would be also good for Scandinavians to have some Russian one.

Thank you for the interview.