Presidential Library took part in a conference marking the reunification of Crimea with Russia

The Interregional Web Conference "Crimea-Russia: Past and Present" was held on Thursday, March 14, 2019 as part of the “Crimean Spring” days and was timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the peninsula’s reunification with Russia. It was organized by the Presidential Library and the Franko Crimean Republican Universal Research Library, which became the main venue for the event. The conference was held with support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Crimea. Libraries from Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Kemerovo, Ryazan, Tambov, and Yekaterinburg joined the meeting via videoconferencing.

This is what Alexei Vorobyov, Director (of External Relations) of the Presidential Library, said in his welcome speech: “We are now celebrating the fifth anniversary of the reunion of Crimea and Russia. These five years have become highly effective for our common development. A regional center and five centers of remote access to the Presidential Library’s resources have been opened in the republic. There are more than 40 regional centers and roughly 1,000 centers of remote access in all. The 1000th center will be inaugurated as part of celebrations marking the Presidential Library’s 10th birthday... "

It was noted that librarians in the regions cooperated actively and were involved in joint projects. As part of cooperation with Crimea, last autumn, for the first time after the reunion of the peninsula and Russia, specialists of the Presidential Library participated in the “Crimean Palaces – St. Petersburg Palaces” International Music Festival, organized the 1st All-Russian Conference “Problems of Preserving Historical Memory in the Digital Environment”, opened a Remote Reading Room in Artek International Children’s Camp, reached an agreement on digitization of a unique collection housed in the Vorontsov Palace in Alupka.

"Crimea - Russia: Past and Present" Web Conference consisted of two parts: the history of the "Crimean Spring" and various aspects of cooperation of the peninsula with the regions of our country. The participants stressed that Crimea acceded to the Russian Empire in 1783 and remained part of the Russian and later the Soviet state for 208 years. The peninsula reunited with Russia 5 years ago on March 18, 2014 and since then many regions of our country have been engaged in cooperation with it. Representatives of libraries thousands of kilometers away from the sunny peninsula made reports on this subject via videoconferencing.

There are a lot of unique materials on the history of this territory in the electronic collections of the Presidential Library. Of particular interest is the “Crimea in Postcards” special collection, which includes 850 electronic copies of postcards of the late 19th - early 20th c. Grouped together based on geography they highlight the life of different localities of the peninsula.

Another electronic collection of the Presidential Library – “The Republic of Crimea: Pages of History” consists of more than 450 studies, essays, archival documents, photographs and other rare materials, which cast light on all stages of the development of the peninsula from ancient times to the early 20th c.

What is more, a multimedia video spotlighting the peninsula was made ahead of the fifth anniversary of the reunion of Crimea and Russia. It is based on the materials of the Presidential Library’s electronic collections and is shown on plasma panels in buses, trolleybuses and trams in St. Petersburg.