The 37th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee was held in Cambodia from June 16 to 27, 2013. According to its results, 19 new sites were added to its World Heritage List and the borders of three sites were extended. The following changes were made in the List of World Heritage in Danger: one site was removed from it and seven were inscribed into it (six of them are located in the Syrian Arab Republic and one – in Solomon Islands).
About 1400 people took part in the session. The Russian delegation headed by E.V. Mitrofanova, Permanent Delegate of the Russian Federation to UNESCO, consisted of 28 members, including Mikhail Sharomazov, director of the Kirillo-Belozersky museum-reserve. It was planned to discuss issues concerning such sites, as the ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery.
- Mr. Sharomazov, why did the participants of the session in Cambodia touch upon the Ferapontov Monastery?
- Reports of the countries on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites are on the agenda of the session. The report was to be given every five years until recently. If there are any remarks, a new deadline is established.
For example, some remarks were made when we gave a report about the Ferapontov Monastery in 2010. The questions of principle were: lack of documentation about the tourist development of the Ferapontovo village, a draft of its beautification and a development plan of the Ferapontovo rural settlement. Besides, it was necessary to establish a single commission (committee) with the Russian Orthodox Church that would coordinate all actions. The deadline for the new report was 2013. We were to solve the above-mentioned problems till that time.
This year the Ferapontov Monastery was the only Russian site about which the UNESCO World Heritage Committee has made no remarks. It means we will not prepare a new report in the next five years. I should note that the list of the sites the reports of which were not criticized was long, but not extensive. The most striking one is Taj Mahal.
Members of the Committee appreciated positive dynamics of the work which we had carried out to meet all the requirements. Of course, it is the merit of Eleonora Mitrofanova, Permanent Delegate of the Russian Federation to the UNESCO, the Russian National Committee of World Heritage and the RF Ministry of Culture.
In general, this session was not very successful for our country. A number of large sites (including the Moscow Kremlin, Red Square, the Yaroslavl Kremlin, Kizhi) was criticized. Besides, the Bolgar Historical and Archeological Complex (Tatarstan) was not inscribed into the UNESCO World Heritage List. Its acceptance was postponed till the next session. They have some time to improve documentation. So the report on the Ferapontov Monastery differed markedly.
- Did they touch upon an issue of inscribing the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery into the UNESCO World Heritage List?
- The Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery is not in the list of sites which the Committee plans to inscribe into the UNESCO World Heritage List yet.
The issue of Kirilllov was first raised in the same period as of the Ferapontov Monastery: the documents were made simultaneously at the first stage. But the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery didn’t become a site considered by the Committee because there was no draft of the protective zone. At present the whole package of documents is prepared and it is very important to begin work on the inclusion of the site into the UNESCO World Heritage List. It will be difficult to do it, but it is this task I set myself. Now we have to face the fact that many responsible persons don’t understand what for it is necessary to be inscribed into this list.
- Is there probably anxiety concerning any additional restrictions?
- Inclusion into the UNESCO World Heritage List doesn’t have any restrictions except those which are applied by the Russian legislation. But it increases responsibility of the state for everything which happens with the monuments.
In my opinion, absence of many sites in the UNESCO lists is a blow to the image of our country at the international level. It turns out that there are over 30 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Turkey and only 25 in such a vast country as Russia. And 10 of them are natural monuments.
- What useful things have you noted for yourself at the session?
- I think that any session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is extremely useful; therefore I participate in such an event for the third time. For example, when discussing the topic “Cultural Heritage in Danger”, they speak not only of the problems of a specific site, but about problems of the cultural heritage in general.
The discussion about one of the sites in Spain lasted for more than 3 hours at the session in St. Petersburg. As for this session, only the consultative part of the discussion about Bolgar lasted one hour and a half. It shows interest of the world society in the protection of the cultural heritage.
But it is exactly at the session where you can understand that our state and mass media are not ready to speak about the cultural heritage. A piece of news about exclusion of the group of sites in the historical centre of St. Petersburg from the UNESCO World Heritage List was a shock for the whole delegation. There is not a single Russian site in this list and it is an important merit of our delegate Eleonora Mitrofanova, though the UNESCO mission raised a question concerning St. Petersburg, Moscow Kremlin, Red Square, and the forests of Komi many times.
It has become clear after discussions that today one of the feeblest issues is understanding of what the cultural heritage is. What does this concept mean: total ban or a stimulus for further development? For instance, is it necessary to stop any construction in Ferapontovo? Or on the opposite – is it necessary to develop infrastructure of this village so that the UNESCO site could be accessible for a larger number of visitors? Such issues are still not mentioned in the legislative acts. And not only the Ferapontov Monastery and our country, but the whole world society face them.
