Despite Western sanctions against Russia, world cultural centers still cooperate with Moscow.
This was stated by Alexander Kibovsky, head of the Moscow Department of Culture, during parliamentary hearings on the implementation of state cultural policy, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“The capital must ensure our high position in the world. If we take statistics from last year, we had a million film screenings, 80 thousand performances, 30 thousand concerts, 1 exhibitions, 700 tours, and so on. Every day we have more than 600 cultural events in our capital. This figure can be the envy of many European capitals of the world that claim to be cultural metropolises. We talk to them completely as equals. The year before last, London entrusted us with hosting the summit of cultural metropolises of the world. This actually says a lot,” Kibovsky noted.
He emphasized that despite all the foreign policy circumstances, Moscow has no problems at the cultural level.
“Such events are often held in Moscow when we are provided with materials for exhibitions. Now we have the Leiden exhibition named after Pushkin, and New York has provided us with the originals of Vermeer and Rembrandt, and these are masterpieces of the first magnitude.
Not a single reputable museum will give first-level masterpieces to a country where there is some instability, the threat of failure to fulfill obligations, and so on. Everything that is said at the political level about our country is superficial. The people themselves understand that we are reliable partners here, and we are their guarantors of stability in the field of culture and art. This is also a very good test of what is sometimes stated from high political platforms,” Kibovsky concluded.