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Good afternoon, friends and prize winners.
Let me start by offering my warmest congratulations on Culture Worker’s Day. I congratulate
everyone working in this sector, those present here today, and those who will follow our
meeting today in media reports.
You and your colleagues work in a broad and diverse range of areas, but culture’s great
humanistic force unites you all. Some see work in this area as a mission, and others
see it as an undertaking of public benefit. Talented people, devoted to their jobs, work
in the arts and literature, in libraries, museums, at our biggest concert venues and
at countryside halls.
You give your all to culture, devote your time and energy, and you do so with love for
your profession and vocation.
Russian culture has tremendous potential and you make a huge contribution to developing
this potential and creating a modern cultural environment in our country, where new creative
ideas and inspiration from the spiritual and cultural traditions of Russia’s peoples
are equally important.
This is immensely important, including for educating our children, and perhaps above
all for cultivating in our children and young people a responsible and demanding attitude
to themselves and their environment, the will to develop their talents, a desire for knowledge
and an ability to perceive and learn about the world through the arts and aesthetic sense.
Friends, it is our custom to mark Culture Worker’s Day by presenting the prize for
young cultural workers and the prize for writing and arts for children and young people.
Vladislav Lavrik has been awarded the prize for his contribution to developing and promoting
music. He is deservedly considered Russia’s best brass instrument players and performs
solo at the world’s leading venues. Mr Lavrik is artistic director of a renowned brass quintet
and has had great success in developing his talents as a composer and teacher too.
Yevgenia Lotsmanova has an inimitable artistic style. She is still young, but has already
earned recognition from the top names in Russian book illustration. Her elegant illustrations
to various authors’ tales burst with joy, goodness and lightness, even though they are
done using the very difficult technique of colour engraving, which can demand great physical
strength at times. She has said that each of her illustrations reflects the author’s
soul. The readers of the books she has illustrated journey into an uplifting and wonderful world.
Designer, teacher and researcher Yevgenia Cheburashkina’s work also has a very clear
social dimension. She directs projects to redesign the interiors of Moscow kindergartens.
It really is very important that children can play and learn in a comfortable and aesthetically
pleasing environment, so that they can start cultivating artistic taste and a sense of
beauty right from this early age.
Artistic Director of the Russian Academic Youth Theatre Alexei Borodin has been awarded
the Presidential Prize for writing and art for children and young people. He has been
at the lead of one of the audiences’ best-loved theatres for more than 30 years now. The theatre
does not seek sensation or scandals, but it is open to new ideas and bold experiments,
including in performances for children. Mr Borodin places particular emphasis on this
area. Shows put on as part of the Young Directors for Children project have been real hits at
the theatre. Like the theatre’s other brilliant performances, they embody Mr Borodin’s credo:
good will always vanquish evil. Mr Borodin firmly believes in this and has proven it
throughout his many years of creative work.
Films by St Petersburg animated film studio Melnitsa are immensely popular. This studio
was established in the mid-1990s on the initiative of Sergei Selyanov and Alexander Boyarsky.
It is well-known today for its successful projects that have won the indisputable love
of children and adults alike. Films by Konstantin Bronzit hold a particular place on this list.
These Russian films have won popularity and love here at home, and have also been distinguished
with the highest awards at prestigious international festivals.
I want to name another of the prize winners today, Yury Entin. His name represents a whole
era in our culture. His poems have been set to music to create songs full of this wonderful
author’s talent, purity, optimism, humour and generous spirit. They have long since
become classics. People love them, sing them and quote them. Mr Entin really is deservedly
a national poet. He has also written screenplays for popular animated films, including the
very well-known Musicians of Bremen.
Friends, our laureates today meet in full the lofty demands society places on people
working in culture, literature and the arts.
You all have great talent, skill in your creative search, and have achieved outstanding results,
but what is very important is that you all understand the significance of your work for
Russia, for all of us, for our people. You realise what a great role you play in shaping
moral values and guidelines in society. This comes through in your creations, your success
and your work.
Let me congratulate you sincerely and from all my heart once more, and wish you new creative
successes.
Thank you very much.