News
13.07.2021
A joint project by Volgograd and Coventry won a presidential grant
On July 1, 2021, the international project "Digital Tablecloth 'Volgograd - Coventry' - 80 Years of Mutual Support" was launched, having previously become one of the winners of the competition by the Presidential Grants Foundation. Its authors are the project team of the "Lidery Peremen" NGO led by Natalia Oreshkina, and its goal is to develop public diplomacy and support Russian compatriots abroad.
From July 1, 2021 til May 31, 2022, various contests will be held in Volgograd and Coventry simultaneously – their participants will compete in drawing, photography, painting… In parallel to this, all kinds of meetings will be organized – between artists, photographers, students...
A year of such work will culminate in the creation of a "Volgograd-Coventry" digital tablecloth, its design and decorations reflecting the facts of the two twin-cities' history during the Second World War, their modern image, and children's ideas of peace and friendship.
The tablecloth will be represented both by a digital and a tangible copy, decorated around the edges with the children's drawings, and inside – with the photos of the two cities. Among its patterns, one will also find copies of the paintings made by the competing artists, as well as QR codes with the information about the images and their authors, the descriptions of various significant places and their history.
The digital tablecloth will be exhibited in the Maxim Gorky Volgograd Regional Library, and its linen embodiment - in the "Stalingrad Battle" Panorama Museum.
Further to this, the project will be presented at the International Forum of Public Diplomacy "Dialogue on the Volga: Peace and Mutual Understanding in the XXI Century", which takes place annually in Volgograd.
The project will contribute to spreading awareness about the events of the Second World War and the Great Battle of Stalingrad among the younger generation and the international community, as well as to preserving the historical truth about its results.
The first round table dedicated to the start of the project brought together about 40 participants, both from Russia and Britain, - initiators, partners, local government representatives, Rossotrudnichestvo officials, officers of the Russian Embassy in Great Britain, non-profit organizations, students, cultural institutions, residents of Volgograd and Coventry. All participants unanimously decided that friendship, mutual understanding and support between people are the best strategy for the development of relations between the two countries.