Enjoy Russian school students visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Petrozavodsk!

Enjoy Russian language school students and local volunteers have visited the Museum of Fine Arts of Karelia Republic. It is situated in the historic center of Petrozavodsk in the former Cathedral Square, in one of the old stone buildings. This building itself is the architectural monument of 18th century. In different years it housed a public school, Olonets Grammar School for boys, Public Library, Pioneer Palace and Vocational School of Culture.

Systematic work on research and collection of monuments of ancient Russian art in Karelia, active quantitative increase of the collection as well as lack of normal conditions for keeping, made the leaders of the republic expedite the resolution of the issue connected with establishment of the Fine Arts Museum, which opened its doors to visitors for the first time on October 20, 1960.

Today the exposition includes: Ancient Russian Art (icon painting) 15-19 centuries, Decorative and Applied Art of Karelia of the 19-20 centuries, Russian Art of early 18-20 centuries,  Russian art of the 20^th century, Karelian art of the 20^th century, Wester European Art.

The excursion was presented in Russian by one of the guides Marina Korshakova. All students had a chance to learn more about Karelian and Russian everyday living of past centuries. As the guide used lots of specific terms, it was hard to understand the details. After the excursion our volunteers helped the students and translated all indistinct parts. “Students were fascinated with ancient icons. We told them a legend of creation of the Kizhi church. They were also impressed by the stories of Russian and Lappish daily graft – we told them about ancient “iron” and “washing machine”, - Anna Abramova (one of the volunteers) told.

John Dawton shared his impressions: “It was in interesting experience because we were able to see the old Icons and discover what the national Karelian dress was, it was a great cultural experience!”