Festival of Culture

Parks are as important as the palace complex to the ambiance of the Tsarskoye Selo part of the city of Pushkin. The two most important of these are Catherine Park and Alexander Park, named after the palaces located within their territories.
Catherine Park is composed of two main sections: the Regular (Old Garden) Park and the Landscape (English) Park. The Regular Park is a formal garden symmetrically organizing the space around the palace, composed of a strict system of alleys, platforms, pavilions, and sculptures.
Alexander Park spans over approximately 200 ha and adjoins the parade ground (courtyard) of the Great Tsarskoye Selo (Catherine) Palace and can also be split into a regular (New Garden) park and a landscape park.

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The exhibition displays paintings, drawings, sculptures, theatrical decorative and ornamental art and the coins of three private collections in St. Petersburg: the Paleev family, Vladimir Berezovsky and Kirill and Julia Naumov. The exposition introduces practically unknown works of the greatest Russian artists of the 19th–20th centuries: Ivan Aivazovsky, Nathan Altman, Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Mikhail Vrubel, Natalia Goncharova, Boris Kustodiev, Konstantin Korovin, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Ilya Repin, Zinaida Serebriakova, Konstantin Somov, and others.

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Please note that the museum tour and other additional services are paid by the participant separately.

The exhibition from the The Saga of the Romanovs cycle explores the personality of Nicholas I alongside his foreign policy, ideology, influence over national culture and society as a whole, and life in the imperial court and the royal family, as reflected in paintings, drawings, coins and decorative and applied arts. The exposition includes numerous ceremonial portraits of Emperor Nicholas I, his associates and members of the royal family, created by artists and sculptors of the calibre of George Dow, Franz Krüger, Orest Kiprensky, Fyodor Tolstoy, and others. The paintings and drawings, ceremonial monumental vases and dinnerware, furniture, bronzeware, rare coins, and the many other furnishings that make up the exhibition give a sense of the artistic life of a prosperous country, and of the sophisticated interiors of the royal residences and the life of the highest court.

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Please note that the museum tour and other additional services are paid by the participant separately.

The Russian Museum contains numerous works of art created in Crimea and received as a gift from the Arkhip Kuindzhi Society. They follow the soul searching and artistic quest of the painter through his study of colour relationships and contrasts and the generalisation of form. He contemplated the movement of clouds over the sea and steppe, atmospheric fluctuations during the day, fog and sunsets.
The exhibition in the Garden Vestibule of the Mikhailovsky Palace presents selected paintings by Arkhip Kuindzhi devoted to the natural landscapes of Crimea. In his paintings, as in all creative heritage, he conveyed the diversity of the beautiful and eternal in nature, as seen by his admiring eyes.

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In the Elena Tsvetkova Jewellery House gallery, the project ‘Contemporary Heritage of Russia’, with the support of the movement ‘We Love Russia’, will present the works of the greatest contemporary artists, who have received the Gokhran of Russia award. Their works have been exhibited in the Gokhran of Russia, the Moscow Kremlin museums, the Diamond Fund of Russia, the State Historical Museum, the Hermitage, the Russian Museum and other museums across the country.

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The museum’s permanent exhibition boasts the world's largest collection of works by the famous Russian jeweller Carl Fabergé. The most treasured items in the collection are nine Easter eggs created by House of Fabergé masters for the last two Russian emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II. In addition to these internationally known masterpieces, guests will discover the surprising breadth of the jewellery work done by Fabergé and other famous Russian jewellers from the 19th to early 20th centuries: from tsars’ snuff boxes and cigarette cases to carved stone miniatures, jewellery, Russian enamel art, decorative silverware, and precious icons.

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This exhibition describes life at the Tsarskoye Selo residence from February to October 1917, during the period between two revolutions. The time when the age of monarchy draws to a close and a new age, full of revolutionary fervour, rises in its place. The Tsarskoye Selo residence still exists, but has lost its imperial status. The last Russian Emperor and his family still live in Alexander Palace, but he is now Citizen Romanov and is under house arrest by the order of the Russian Provisional Government. In the spring of 1917, the Tsarskoye Selo imperial palaces are being surveyed by an art and history commission tasked with inventorying nationalized property and creating a museum out of the past residence.

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The museum’s central exhibition ‘Man and State Power in Russia from the 19th to the 21st Centuries’ paints a picture of Russia's political history from Catherine II to the modern day. The exhibition’s twelve sections reflect key events in the country's history: shifting political systems and wars, revolutions and reforms, periods of liberalization and increasing authoritarianism. Exhibits, art objects, eyewitness testimonies, and ‘voices of history’ illustrate how the actions of those in power and ordinary people helped shape the course of history.
The exhibition ‘Special Operations Museum’ was opened to in honour of the 100-year anniversary of the Museum of Political History of Russia (est. 1919). It is dedicated to the museum's history, its survival in the face of repression and wars, its renaissance during the Thaw, and how it changed its fate riding the groundswell of the Perestroika.
The exhibition ‘The Leningrad Affair: The City and the People’ presents the political biographies of the city’s functionaries, victims of the repressions of 1949–1952.

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The exhibition, curated in collaboration with the State Hermitage Museum, was first opened in 2016. Items on display include the imperial collection of oriental cold steel and firearms from the 18th and 19th centuries and European arms and munitions from the 16th to 17th centuries, including armour, helmets, halberds, swords, and equestrian equipment. The State Hermitage Museum has contributed some of its own rare items for temporary display, including 16th century armour from the collection of Nicholas I.

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This is the first museum in Russia dedicated to the country’s experiences during the tragic period of World War I (1914–1917). It is located in the Martial Chamber, a building conceived by Emperor Nicholas II as a pantheon of military glory.
The exhibition showcases real munitions and day-to-day objects used by those involved in World War I, as well as print and photographic materials from the Tsarskoye Selo Museum and Heritage Site collection.

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The halls of the literary and monographic exhibition ‘A. S. Pushkin: His Life and Work’ feature the famous ‘Portrait of Alexander Pushkin’ by Vasily Tropinin, depictions of the poet and his contemporaries made during their lifetimes, first editions of his works, memorial items, and a miniature replica of the Naschokin House. The Green Hall contains the exhibition ‘Portraits of A. S. Pushkin,’ which features over 100 paintings, graphic representations, and sculptures from the museum's vast collection. The exhibition includes Pushkin’s sketches from the margins of his manuscripts, famous portraits of the poet by contemporaries such as Vasily Tropinin and Karl Bryullov, and works by the great masters of the late 19th to 20th centuries, including Ilya Repin, Ivan Aivazovsky, Valentin Serov, Konstantin Somov, Boris Kustodiev, Vasili Shukhaev, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Mikhail Anikushin, and others.

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Alexander Pushkin studied at the Imperial Lyceum of Tsarskoye Selo from 1811 to 1817. The school’s grand hall, library (featuring original books from the Lyceum's collection, some of which were a gift to the school from Alexander I), classrooms, and dormitories all help re-create the atmosphere in which the students of this privileged educational establishment lived and studied.

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Please be advised that participants are responsible for covering the price of any tour or other additional services.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the Russian Federation’s sovereign wealth fund, and the State Hermitage Museum present an exhibition of works by modern artists from around the world, dedicated to the creative capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI).
AI-based contemporary art has received global recognition following the sale of a painting created by the French art group Obvious, at Christie’s Auction House on 25 October 2018. Obvious’ artists used a generative adversarial network (GAN) to mimic the creative process of human intelligence.
The exhibition also features the work of Saudi Arabian artist Lulwa Al-Homoud, who has used AI to develop a new abstract graphical language based on the Arabic alphabet; Italian artist Davide Quayola, who presents an AI ‘perception’ of classic impressionist paintings; and Turkish artist Refik Anadol, whose work Machine hallucinations was created by analysing 100,000 photographs of architecture.
The exhibition will feature the work of 14 artists and art collectives from ten countries.

A ticket is required to attend the exhibition and can be purchased at one of the museum’s ticket offices.

St. Petersburg's only Alexander Pushkin Museum and Memorial Apartment is dedicated to the final, most dramatic period of the poet’s life. The museum houses Pushkin’s writing table and chair, the sofa on which he died, a lock of his hair, and his death mask.

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The Pushkin Memorial Dacha Museum is located in a single-story wooden building, the original architectural façade of which has been mostly preserved. The poet Alexander Pushkin and his young wife lived in this building from May to October 1831. This dacha (summer home) was the place where he penned The Tale of Tsar Saltan, ‘Onegin’s Letter to Tatyana,’ and other works.

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Please be advised that participants are responsible for covering the price of any tour or other additional services.

An exhibition by the contemporary St. Petersburg artist Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai, participant in the 58th Venice Biennale, will take place on 5–30 June on Telezhny Pereulok. The artist has prepared an exhibition for residents and guests of St. Petersburg which echoes the iconic sights of the city.
The exhibition will be the first project in the Art Programme of the Staronevsky Prospekt association, created together with the BABOCHKA chain of boutiques, the local offices of Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior and others to develop Staronevsky Prospekt, a historical area of St. Petersburg.

Free admission.

This tour offers you an exciting story of Russia’s icebreaking fleet and Arctic exploration, a visit to the captain’s cabin, the chartroom and the pilot room of the legendary icebreaker Krasin. Keel laying took place in 1916 in England; the order was placed by the Government of the Russian Empire. On 31 March 1917, St. Andrew’s flag was flown on board of the vessel, and the icebreaker was commissioned the same year. In 1928, the ship’s crew received the Soviet Union’s top award for saving Umberto Nobile’s expedition that crashed on the airship Italia near Spitsbergen. Krasin took two circumnavigational voyages. During World War II, the ship participated in many polar convoys, and then for many years Krasin served the Northern Sea Route. Later the icebreaker got the status of a research vessel. The first Arctic oil and gas exploration expedition (1974–1976) took place in the Russian Arctic shelves and used Krasin as the floating power station for the marine geological field party. Krasin has been a branch of the Museum of the World Ocean in St. Petersburg for the last 15 years.
Operating hours:
11:00–18:00 – tours start every hour, subject to turn-out. The last tour starts at 17:00.
18:00–22:00 – leisure time on ship deck.

Premium Package participants can present their badge to gain access. Participants in other categories can purchase admission at a reduced price on presentation of their badge.

This exhibition is about the artistic journey of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, the renowned St. Petersburg porcelain producer, from its foundation in 1744 to the present day: about the origin of porcelain in Russia, the invention and development of new production technologies and decorative techniques, the factory’s craftsmen, and the works they create today, which bring prestige to Russian art. In the exhibition, more than 1,300 porcelain items of the 18th–21st centuries, all stamped with the seal of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, will enable visitors to trace the main trends in the art of Russian porcelain over almost three centuries.

Forum participants may present their badge to be granted entry.

Please note that participants are responsible for covering the price of excursions or other additional services.

The Obukhov Steel Foundry Museum was founded at the end of the 19th century. It was located in the factory laboratory building and existed until the end of the 1920s. Nearly 50 years later, on 20 May 1976, the factory reopened the Museum of Labour, Revolutionary, and Military Glory, which was created on the initiative of the factory’s veterans and union organizations. In May 2014, as part of a large-scale project to create the North-West Regional Centre of Almaz – Antey Corp., a separate two-story building was allocated as the plant’s museum. The museum has eight rooms of permanent exhibition. The building, which now houses the museum, is a cultural heritage site. Designed by civil engineer Fedor Lumberg, it was built in 1896–1897 as the ‘House of the hospital administration with the Obukhov Steel Plant clinic’ with the funds provided by Pavel Obukhov, one of the factory’s founders.
In the building of the new museum and exhibition complex there is an interactive layout of the Obukhov plant of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, created by the joint efforts of the Museum of History of the Obukhov Plant and the founders of the legendary Grand Maket Rossiya project. The model layout represents the operation of the factory’s production facilities, the passers-by on the Shlisselburg road (now Obukhovskoy Oborony Avenue) going about their business, and the life of workers.

Forum participants may present their badge to be granted entry.

Please be advised that participants are responsible for covering the price of any tour or other additional services.

A variety of multimedia materials collected during research expeditions to Yamal, Chukotka, and the Kola Peninsula accompany 95 rare items from the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography’s collection. The exhibition is a vivid depiction of the current nomadic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic.

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Please be advised that participants are responsible for covering the price of any tour or other additional services.

Institute of Oriental Manuscript’s presents a selection of manuscript masterpieces from the East. The Institute houses one of the largest collections of manuscripts in the world – the largest in Russia – with over 115,000 items in 65 modern and dead languages. This unique collection is located in the luxurious interior of the Novo-Mikhailovsky (New Michael) Palace, a vivid example of 19th century palace architecture.

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Colourful, vibrant, direct, spontaneous: all these epithets can be applied to Don Quixote, but none of them can fully convey the sense of joy that the ballet invariably arouses in the audience. The red capes of the toreadors, the strumming of guitars, the clicking of castanets, coquettish glances from behind open fans... The enchanting levity of the ‘ballet of Spain’ surges onto the Mikhailovsky Theatre stage. Each performer interprets this ballet in their own way. While it demands virtuosity and stamina, the dancers are given complete freedom of choice in the way they act the parts. It is possible to depict the sincerity and straightforwardness of the characters or present them as cunning deceivers; place an emphasis on simple domestic details, or portray fiery passions. The permutations are endless, and therein lies one of the secrets of the ballet’s phenomenal popularity.

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

The 4th International Biennale of Hot Enamel Art ‘Golden Thread – Road of Creativity’ will be held in the halls of the Stieglitz Academy educational Museum of Applied Art. The exhibition will include works by contemporary enamel artists, professionals from various countries, and teachers and students from Russian and international universities.
The exhibition will present artistic traditions and experimental techniques used to create original works of art using hot enamel techniques, showcasing the diverse approaches of a number of artists and schools.
In addition to this exhibition, guests will also be able to peruse the works of the Museum of Applied Art’s permanent collection.
Tours are held twice a day, starting at 15:00 and 16:00.

Interested Forum participants must register in advance through the personal web office.

EpiCENTER of the World is a unique circus show staged by the Zapashny Brothers. Its plot centres on the adventures of fans travelling to the location of the FIFA World Cup 2018. This innovative show is built on beloved Russian circus traditions and an unshakable belief in treating its four-legged partners with respect. The circus ring will feature animals working with famous trainers, trapeze artists, acrobats, jugglers, and colourful clowns in the role of international football fans. EpiCENTER’s action will be accompanied by the inimitable vocals of Alice Vox and the rock stylings of Teo Sound.

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library is the largest information, cultural, and educational centre in Russia. The tour will guide guests through the historical interiors of the Synod building and the contemporary halls of the Presidential Library, which were created for holding social and state events. The latter include a conference hall and a transforming multimedia hall, which features the latest 3D-enabled technologies, Part of the excursion is a presentation of the library’s electronic collection, which is stored in the Electronic Reading Room and on the Library's Internet portal. The collection includes materials on Russian history, the theory and practice of Russian statehood, the Russian language, literature, geography, and law. Guests will learn about the temporary and permanent exhibitions located within Constitution Hall, which is also home to the singular inaugural copy of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Tours are held twice a day, starting at 16:00 and 17:00.
Tour groups gather in the main foyer of the Presidential Library before meeting their guides.

Forum participants may present their badge to be granted entry.

‘Faceless’ is an alternate reality theatrical performance. There are no stages or curtains, and the main character is played by the viewer themselves.
In this immersive performance, theatregoers become a part of the action, space, and atmosphere and interact with characters that will help them seek answers to their innermost questions.
‘Faceless’ takes place over four floors of an over 300-year-old mansion in the heart of St. Petersburg.
Viewers will have the chance to meet 16 characters, traverse over 50 rooms, and, most importantly, see one of three simultaneous endings.
The script of ‘Faceless’ was inspired by the play ‘Ghosts’ by the playwright Henrik Ibsen. The performance is a prequel, describing the strange happenings that occurred five hours before the events of the play.
Directors: Migel, Mia Zanette.

A ticket is required to attend the performance and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

In 2017 Russia’s oldest traditional jazz band celebrated its 60th anniversary. The programme includes instrumental and vocal pieces from the American Dixieland repertoire, as well as beloved Soviet tunes presented in the band’s signature style. Dance seminar from Lubov Getsova school to follow after the intermission.

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.
Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

Programme:
“The Young Lady and the Hooligan”
Ballet in seven scenes
Music by Dmitry Shostakovich
“5 Tangos”
One-act ballet
Music by Astor Piazzolla; the recording Astor Piazzolla and His Orchestra
Choreography by Hans van Manen
“Diamonds”
Music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Choreography by George Balanchine (1967)

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

A tribute to Benny Goodman, the King of Swing. The State Academic Capella symphony will perform hits from the Golden Age of swing. A screening of a film about the outstanding American clarinettist is planned.

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

EpiCENTER of the World is a unique circus show staged by the Zapashny Brothers. Its plot centres on the adventures of fans travelling to the location of the FIFA World Cup 2018. This innovative show is built on beloved Russian circus traditions and an unshakable belief in treating its four-legged partners with respect. The circus ring will feature animals working with famous trainers, trapeze artists, acrobats, jugglers, and colourful clowns in the role of international football fans. EpiCENTER’s action will be accompanied by the inimitable vocals of Alice Vox and the rock stylings of Teo Sound.

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

Colourful, vibrant, direct, spontaneous: all these epithets can be applied to Don Quixote, but none of them can fully convey the sense of joy that the ballet invariably arouses in the audience. The red capes of the toreadors, the strumming of guitars, the clicking of castanets, coquettish glances from behind open fans... The enchanting levity of the ‘ballet of Spain’ surges onto the Mikhailovsky Theatre stage. Each performer interprets this ballet in their own way. While it demands virtuosity and stamina, the dancers are given complete freedom of choice in the way they act the parts. It is possible to depict the sincerity and straightforwardness of the characters or present them as cunning deceivers; place an emphasis on simple domestic details, or portray fiery passions. The permutations are endless, and therein lies one of the secrets of the ballet’s phenomenal popularity.

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.

Festival attendees will witness legendary rock band Bi-2, accompanied by a symphony orchestra conducted by the Honoured Artist of Russia Felix Aranovsky, play their well-known hits.

This event is open to Premium Package participants by invitation only.
More information about this event can be found in the personal web office.

A ticket is required to attend the event and can be ordered via the personal web office.

Participants are responsible for covering the price of attendance.