International Cultural Forum and St Petersburg

 “The International Cultural Forum is not just about three days in December, it is indispensable part of St Petersburg and Russia: it organizes events a whole year round and attracts thousands of people”, — said Nikolay Kropachev.

This year the section “Education” will host 4 times more events than previous year. The section is going to be attended by students, researchers, lecturers from Russian universities and SPbU graduates, and this year it is the first time when SPbU Alumni Association has prepared its own event, that is an interactive dialogue “Post-Literature or Future of the Culture in the Digital Age” with contemporary writers, journalists, media-producers and publishers from Russia and Europe who will discuss how literature has been and is going to evolve. 

Those who are on a visit to St Petersburg or permanently reside here are more than welcome to the Forum (performances, concerts, exhibitions, open discussions), said SPbU’s Rector.

“The Forum is not just about discussing theory and concepts, — said Nikolay Kropachev. — It must bring pleasure: to that end, we organise a great number of exhibitions, performances and other cultural events to have people adopt a different view on how our universities and city live and work”.

In 2016, the organisers have received dozens messages on how to organise the section this year, said Zorina Myskova, Chairperson of the Organisational Committee of “Education” and Director of the Centre for Applied Research and Developments at SPbU. “Only those were selected that particularly focus on creative universities and show how higher education contributes to culture. We have successfully managed to unite creative universities in St Petersburg: SPbU, Conservatory, Vaganova Ballet Academy and Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, pre-schools and schools to  discuss how they should prepare and educate both in Russia and aboard, — said the Chairperson of the Committee. — Most our events are for general public”, — added Zorina Myskova.

“All the events are significant and it is impossible to select the one, — said Nikolay Kropachev. — It is a hard task to visit them all as well. I recommend to visit them with your family, to decide who and what events to visit and discuss them in the evening in your family. It must bring pleasure”.

In 2016, among the events in “Education” are international conferences: “Museums and Universities’ Collections: Universal Heritage”, “Language as a State Language: Law and Social Reality”, a congress “New Technologies in the Arts”, with a special focus on the Russian cinema, and St Petersburg Design Forum. The section will also host a concert of the symphony orchestra of the students of St Petersburg Conservatory “The Young to the Young”, an exhibition “Nereditsa. Link between Times”, which focuses on the Saviour Church on Nereditsa, a unique monument of the Old Russian architecture and Novgorod arts, which was restored by SPbU, and others.

The section invited over 120 speakers from Russia and 20 speakers from abroad, including East and West Europe, USA, Egypt, China, South Korea, and Iran. The events will be arranged at 9 platforms, among which General Staff Building is, Presidential Library named after B.N. Yeltsin, Vaganova Ballet Academy, Herzen University, SPbU and others.

The International Cultural Forum hosts 14 sections.