News
Trip to Tver Region
In early August our Foundation staff made a working trip to Valdai.
The summer camp of the Center for Curative Teaching, our long-standing partner and recipient, was our first stop. The program of Valdai Integrative Rehabilitation Summer Camp aims to integrate "special" children into life as much as possible. Throughout the summer shifts, speech therapists, defectologists and psycho-neurologists work with children. Classes are organized to captivate kids in joint activities and develop cognitive, motor, and communicative skills. It is of great importance that "special" children living in the camp with healthy children become better prepared for every day life. We are proud that our Foundation volunteers are involved in the program.
Anna L. Bitova, the CCT director, and we paid a visit to the Priozersk Psychoneurological Boarding School to look into its living conditions, talk to the staff and patients, identify their urgent needs (clothes, books, supplies for handicraft) and outline the format of our future collaboration.
The destination of our big trip was the Robinson Summer Camp which forged our fosterlings into different people – grown-up, independent and self-confident. We express our sincere gratitude to Vershitel Company and its instructors for an excellent and immensely important experience.
Ant Holiday!
On July 30, the Medvezhye Ozera ("Bear Lakes") country club celebrated the Ant Holiday, which is annually held by the Charitable Foundation in the Moscow region.
Guests were families with disabled children, large family with low income, children from Moscow region orphan asylums and children's homes undergoing medical treatment in Moscow clinics.
"Robinsons" return home!
Today, the 4th shift at the Robinson children camp is over.
During a fortnight, fosterlings from our orphan asylums lived in a tent camp on the shore of Lake Yelchinskoye. They learned how to survive in woods, manage the canoe, perform first aid and took part in various master classes. The bravest "Robinsons" experienced a breathtaking adventure - spent two days on an island without instructors!
We congratulate our kids on victory!
"A Visit to Tula Grandparents" Summer Volunteer Camp
Our traditional partner, the Joyful Old Age Charity Foundation arranged A Visit to Tula Grandparents 2013, a two-week long volunteer camp.
Fifteen volunteers, including those from our Foundation, went to the village of Gremyacheye, the Tula region, to brighten the condition of a rural hospital that accommodates about 80 lonely elderly people and its grounds.
Camp participants are renovating eight wards in a hospital building and devote their spare time to the old inhabitants, who badly need attention and compassion.
Summer camp in Moscow Region
On June 28, the Here and Now Orphans Charitable Foundation and ANO ROST supported by the Vladimir Smirnov Foundation launched "A Journey through the Looking-Glass ", a children's summer holiday program.
For three years in succession, children from orphan asylums, adoptive and ordinary families are staying at a children camp in the Moscow Region. Here they experience wonderful adventures, unforgettable friendships, mutual help and a host of discoveries.
Cooperation with Andrei Petrov Foundation
Our foundation has obtained another remarkable partner, the Andrei Petrov Foundation.
We intend to cooperate in the Summer Musical Nights which are staged in St Petersburg in Andrei Petrov Square on Kamennoostrovsky Avenue.
We are happy to do something to commemorate a wonderful composer loved by the whole nation.
Closing of Kinoostrov Festival
On June 23, St. Petersburg's Cinema House saw the festivities closing the All-Russia Children's Kinoostrov Festival sponsored by the Vladimir Smirnov Foundation.
The Children's movie marathon lasted 21 days within the framework of the Cinema Camp. During the summer, film industry gurus guided boys and girls through the basics of stage direction and cameraman job, taught acting, stunt performance, character creation and makeup.
This year the organizers split the festival program into three parts: "Amateurs" (children's films made by laymen), "Children's Studios" (films made by children ) and "Professionals" (films made by adults). A special nomination called "Debut" was set up for films shot in the cinema camp. The winners, who received their awards at the festival closing, were from Arkhangelsk, Chelyabinsk, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow.
Visit to Kinoostrov Camp
On June 20–21, we visited the Kinoostrov children camp. We attended master classes in film editing, acting, stunt performance and took part in the camp closing festivities.
Book on the History of Russian Around-the-World Voyages
The Vladimir Smirnov Foundation participates in the publication of a book about 200 years of Russian voyages around the world. The book is written by Alexei Krusenstern, a descendant of Ivan Krusenstern, the famous Russian navigator, who led the first Russian expedition to sail around the world.
According to Alexei Krusenstern, "the book is about around-the-world voyages in the 19th century, with more than fifty of them taking place in the middle of the century. Later, they were continued in the early 20th century to stop for a very long time before restarting as Soviet vessels, except commercial ones, did not sail around the world. In 1991, Russia became enthusiastic enough to send ships to sail around the world. They were Krusenstern, Pallada and Nadezhda and in recent years Sedov.
Besides, Alexei Krusenstern tells about Russia's role in international seafaring.
New Joint Project with A. Sokurov Foundation
The Vladimir Smirnov Foundation and the Alexander Culture, Arts and Education Foundation are to launch a new joint project. By the end of 2013, Alexander Sokurov's three documentaries about Japan will be fully restored and released on DVD.
Films "The Oriental Elegy" (1996), "The Humble Life" (1997) and "Dolce. Tenderly" (1999) compose the so-called "Japanese cycle" in the filmography of Alexander Sokurov, one of the greatest contemporary film directors. These pictures feature his new style inspired by intimate knowledge of Japanese traditional art and Japanese people.
The "Oriental Elegy" creates a partly contemporary, partly mediaeval atmosphere of Japan depicted in the conventional sense. This atmosphere can be felt in the famous Japanese graphic art, in the mastership of great artists and now in Sokurov's film.
"The Humble Life" among the three films, perhaps, most closely resembles the observational mode of documentary. We witness an elderly woman, the hostess of a house in the mountains. We watch her life rhythm, hear her breath, perceive her patience and industry. The stillness of her existence suddenly broken by monks ringing bells and bringing blessing lapses into a quiet and level life again. When the filming was over and the camera crew was going to say goodbye to the hostess, after a minute of hesitation she proposed to us to read her haiku. This scene taken from real life was final in the film. "This was the most amazing thing that I experienced in the so-called documentary filmmaking," Alexander Sokurov was saying.
In his third picture, "Dolce. Tenderly", the action took place in a family living on an island. The main heroine, Miho Shimao, the widow of a writer, plays herself in an improvised piece about her own life. The film shows a complicated and delicate subject – the life with a disabled child, responsibility of an adult for another's life in general, and a child's life in particular. "Of course, life has love and happiness in store..." These are the last words in the film and the Japanese cycle as well. Many people abroad know Alexander Sokurov in the first place as the author of these three pictures which reach the Russian spectator primarily through festival shows.
The restoration of "The Oriental Elegy" and its DVD release will help preserve the masterpieces of Alexander Sokurov, as part of the national artistic heritage.
