"Your profession is your choice"
The project by Nina Zvereva's "Praktika" Center entitled "Your Profession is your Choice!" won the award of LUKOIL's 2014 Social and Cultural Projects Competition and was implemented in Nizhny Novgorod Region as part of the "Living Word" festival. It is a unique cultural and educational program of the Project designed to introduce orphans to the fundamentals of art or media jobs, thus enabling them in the years ahead to choose an audacious, interesting and dignified vocation.
The "Your Profession is your Choice!" project has existed for 5 years now, and over these years 105 foster children from 11 orphanages in Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod and Kirov Regions and the Republic of Chuvashia took part in the program. LUKOIL has been continuously rendering support to the project and keeping up with its progress.
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“RAINBOW” JAZZ & POP BAND
"Rainbow" is a Pokachi-based band (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra) that has existed for over 5 years now. The project became possible in 2011 after the Pokachi children's music school won LUKOIL's Social and Cultural Projects Competition. The grant awarded following the Competition was used to start the "Rainbow" jazz and pop band. From that time on not only has a children's band from a small West Siberian town been gaining popularity with the locals during its shows on public holidays or talent competitions, but also repeatedly won the "Wind Rose" festival and numerous awards of the international festival "Long Live Kazan!"
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It's been several years that the Kaliningrad Region got to see an unusual ship. It all started back in 2011 when the "Thumbs up to Sea Vessels!" project by the World Ocean Museum (Kaliningrad) won an award of LUKOIL's Social and Cultural Projects Competition. The funds allocated for the project were used to build a "kurenas" replica, a fishing sailing boat that was in wide use with the fishers of the coastal areas of the Couronian lagoon in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The boat is 10 meters long, 2.7 meters wide and has a deadweight of 3 tons. A boat like that can carry between 4 and 5 fishermen.
To construct a "kurenas" a special building berth was erected on the bank of the Pregolya River. Participants to the project included students of the Baltic Shipbuilding Technical School, cadets of the St. Andrew Marine Cadet Core and children from the Navy Club from a secondary school in the town of Pionersky.
The "Thumbs up to Sea Vessels!" project was implemented by FSIC "World Ocean Museum" to revive the craft of wooden shipbuilding on the Baltic coast, encourage the youth to study the history of seafaring as well as the history and practices of shipbuilding.
Over the recent years the "museum kurenas" took part in the historic vessel festivals in Klaipeda (Lithuania) and Brest (France). It is a must-have on the Herring Day and Water Assembly, the events very much loved by both Kaliningrad residents and visitors. It is also used in the children's boat voyages, which are a regular event held with LUKOIL's financial backing
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The villagers of Cherny Yar in Chernoyarsk District will be very pleased to show their guests around their museum of authentic Cossack culture "Cossack Hut". Every single item, from the fence to the stone stove in the hut's backyard, has been manufactured using centuries-old technologies. Next to it is a watch tower that back then was used to observe the surrounding area. The project became possible after winning LUKOIL's Social and Cultural Projects Competition in 2013.
The cossack hut's interior fully meets the descriptions of the old chronicles and is a set of everyday items used by the cossacks. Visitors to the museum are welcomed by residents of the cossack village of Chernoyarskaya.
Initially the museum of the authentic cossack culture sought to introduce school children of Chernoyarsk District to the cossack lifestyle and organize guided tours about the hut itself. For the hut to live it to the fullest, the cossack community jointly with the District's Education Board, and Extended Education Center of Chernoyarsk District elaborated a dedicated program of museum tours. The tours organized for both the local residents and visitors are interesting and entertaining.
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In 2014 a non-conventional project launched by the Usinsk Municipal Organization of the Komi Republic Division of the All-Russian Disabled Society became winner of LUKOIL's Social and Cultural Projects Competition. The competition's grant was intended for support and rehabilitation of disabled individuals and was used to start a game club where one can take a shot at the conventional chess, checkers, backgammon or master other rare or unconventional games.
If the weather permits open-air nordic walking practices, "school sports days" or bocce competitions are held.
Games of skill are a whole unique world that is open both to kids and adults. Not only do such games serve to entertain, but they also make it possible for one to try one's skills, teach one to cope with difficulties, rise above oneself, facilitate social networking, help socialize and thus make one's leisure not only interesting, but also useful.
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It's been several years that the Akan Museum has been successfully operating in the village of Novikbozh in the Komi Republic. The museum was set up as part of the "Folklife Culture is a Never-Ending Spring" project launched by the budget-funded institution "Community Center" in the village of Novikbozh, that in 2012 won LUKOIL's Social and Cultural Projects Competition.
The Akan Musem (Puppet Museum) is an exhibition area that is based on a peasant lifestyle room with elements of the Komi peasants' log cabin (stove, God's corner, table, benches, bunks, coffer, cradle), and centuries-old utensils (oven fork, poker, pots, wooden spoons, spinning wheels, spindles, sieves, mortar) and other items that are exhibitive of the material side of our ancestors' culture.
The exhibition area additionally displays some fairy tale interiors, for example, the birchbark basket, fairy tale styled shoulder-yokes with painted designs and wooden buckets.
Visitors to the Akan Museum can get to know the lifestyle of peasant children and have a bash at making a hand-twisted folk puppet.
According to the project master-minds, it is a well-loved toy that is the most fully exhibitive of the distinctive character and typical traits of the people that created it. By getting to know the specifics of the toy making process, the youth thereby partake in the folk tradition, learn to take good care of what was created by multiple of generations of their ancestors.
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The project was implemented by the winner of the LUKOIL's Social and Cultural Projects Competition in Perm Krai, I.F. Konovalov Museum of History and Arts in the town of Bereznyaki. The project lead to creation of an exhibition that displays collections of icons, wooden sculptures, copper-cast items that had been stored in the museum's reserve collections.
The new exhibition also displays some A.Rublev icons that have been restored by the museum personnel. The unconventional arrangement of space dabbed "Icon Workshop: the Secret of Icon Birth" provides visitors with an insight into the world of ancient Russian arts.
