The culture was not frozen – MK

How many people visited cinemas, theaters and museums over the long weekend?

At the first press conference of this year, Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova named the number of visitors to Russian cinemas, federal museums and theaters during the “long weekend”. “The only difficulty was the frost,” said Lyubimova, emphasizing that the queues at the Tretyakov Gallery in sub-zero weather became the reason for communication with the gallery management. But overall, everything worked out well, and national culture was not frozen. Moreover, she has almost recovered from Covid – as evidenced by the announced data.

Over the eight New Year days, according to Lyubimova, 15 million Russians came to cinemas (“the figure is very reminiscent of the pre-pandemic period,” says the minister). A million people have visited museums, with every fifth visitor being children. The leaders among museums in demand were the Tretyakov Gallery (102 thousand guests), the Hermitage (94 thousand), Tsarskoe Selo (90 thousand), as well as the Russian Museum, the Historical Museum, the Museum of the World Ocean in Kaliningrad, the Pushkin Museum and the Moscow Kremlin Museum. Attendance at museum-reserves in Suzdal and Novgorod the Great has also increased.

Federal theaters also set a record – 230 thousand spectators (20% more than in 2023). This means that the consequences of the quarantine months, for which restrictions on the occupancy of halls became the norm, have been completely overcome.

By the way, in Lugansk, in just over a week, Russian circuses gave 24 performances for 30 thousand spectators.

In general, Lyubimova did not ignore the work in the “new territories”, but already summing up the results of the past year, and not dealing with holiday statistics. 77 museums in the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions received new equipment and/or updated exhibitions. 71 federal museums took patronage over the institutions of the four regions admitted to the Russian Federation, that is, approximately one for each.

The main thing that has been done is the opening of an exhibition of reproductions of Russian icons in the Donbass by the Andrei Rublev Museum in the capital (in the city of Volnovakha). In Shakhtersk, at the College of Cinema and Television, the Cinema Museum named after. Khanzhonkov and a cinema, accessible not only to creative students, but also to local residents. The State Historical Museum restored the Museum of the Don Cossacks in the LPR, and the Bakhrushinsky Museum in Debaltsevo created a permanent exhibition “Russian fairy tale on the theater stage.”

An equally important process is the integration into the all-Russian educational space of Donbass universities involved in training personnel in the field of culture. We are talking about the Lugansk Academy of Culture and Arts named after. Matusovsky and Donetsk Music Academy named after. Prokofiev. Now they are officially federal state educational institutions.