Cultural workers will go to Donbass for two million

A long-term program for the preservation of cultural heritage sites has been announced

In his Address to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin used the word “culture” at least twenty times, but most often in an indirect form. When he said, for example, that our soldiers and officers – “representatives of different ethnic groups, cultures, regions” – prove at the front the centuries-old unity of the people. Or he mentioned that in Russian families, the values ​​of love are passed down from generation to generation in the same way as “culture, traditions, history, moral principles.”

At the same time, the head of state paid enough attention to the cultural sphere specifically.

Thus, he asked the government (not only the current one, but also the next one, which will be appointed after the elections) to increase funding for international programs to promote the Russian language and Russian culture in the CIS “and in the world as a whole.”

Thus, in the near future, Russia will definitely not give up its cultural presence in the post-Soviet space and beyond.

But the most important thing that has been said is not even that the focus on choosing creative and cultural activities will be strengthened in career guidance for schoolchildren.

Thesis number one is the twenty-year program announced by Putin for the protection of cultural heritage sites (with the involvement of business, individual interested citizens and public organizations).

Since “ancient buildings, estates, temples are the visible embodiment of our national identity,” Vladimir Vladimirovich instructed to deal with the regulatory framework affecting the use and state protection of monuments, ancient buildings, and so on.

In total, by 2030 (that is, by the end of Putin’s next presidential term), a thousand cultural heritage sites across the country will be put in order.

Finally, the long-awaited “Zemstvo Cultural Worker” program will be launched in Russia next year. Long-awaited, if only because, as the president himself said, “people constantly talk about it at meetings.”

The fact is that, having received a more or less good education, young specialists go where the salaries are higher – at least to regional centers, and in general to Moscow and St. Petersburg. “Zemstvo” initiatives are designed to turn the flow of personnel back to the so-called “province.” Those who agree to go to work in cultural institutions in villages and small towns will be paid a million rubles at a time. Those who dare to move to the Donbass and other new regions for the same purpose will be given two million. The amount is significant, but, given the constant shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the LDPR and Zaporozhye/Kherson regions, it is hardly capable of becoming a powerful incentive.

The fact is that the enemy attacks Palaces of Culture, as was the case, for example, in Gorlovka in November 2022, or libraries (a very recent example: a strike from the HIMARS MLRS on the Donetsk Krupskaya Library) with particular zeal.

But maybe there is a secret meaning in the date “January 1, 2025”, and by this time the SVO is going to be completed.

In any case, the head of the State Duma Committee on Culture, Elena Yampolskaya, warmly welcomes the implementation of the “Zemstvo cultural worker”, as this will allow the fire not to go out in the centers of culture on the ground.

“Culture is not walls. Culture is people,” the deputy is sure.