The multimedia project-contest “Russia 10” was announced by Channel Rossiya 1 and the Russian Geographical Society with the assistance of the federal and regional mass media in late March. Its aim was to choose ten new visual symbols of Russia by public vote. Over 700 sites were selected for participation in the contest, including the Kirillo-Belozersky and the Ferapontov Monasteries.
The first stage lasted for 14 weeks - from March 25 to June 30. Ten most popular sights in every federal district of Russia were to be determined within this time. They could reach the second round.
We should admit that it was rather difficult for the Kirillo-Belozersky and the Ferapontov Monasteries to compete from the very beginning because of their geographical location: the Northwestern Federal District includes the areas with the richest architectural, natural and cultural heritage situated in the Vologda, the Archangelsk, the Novgorod, the Pskov, the Kaliningrad regions, the Republic of Karelia, the Komi Republic, the Nenets Autonomous District, and St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.
First the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery was among the ten best sites, but then its rating changed many times. The voting was over on the last Sunday of June. According to its results, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery occupied 18th place (40888 votes) and the Ferapontov Monastery was ranked 49th (3850 votes). So they didn’t advance to the second stage of the contest.
The organizers of the project “Russia 10” occasionally placed information about upward distortion of votes for several sites in their groups (in the social networking sites). Neither the Kirillo-Belozersky nor the Ferapontov Monasteries were in this list. Everything was fair. Only real people cast their votes for our sites.
Of course, we asked to support the monasteries in various information recourses in the Internet, in newspapers and in the museum informational reporter “World of the Museum”. A banner with the reference to the sites was placed on the website of the newspaper “Novaya Zhizn” during the whole first round of the contest.
Social networking sites were also used to distribute data about the participation of the monasteries in the project. Friends and subscribers constantly sent messages from the accounts of the Kirillo-Belozersky museum-reserve asking to support the sites. People reacted upon it in a different way, but nobody accused the museum of spam distribution. Some people were silent (it was quite possible that they voted!), the others reported politely that they voted for another site (though some of them also voted for the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery). Some users actively communicated with us and supported the sites not only with their votes, but also with warm words. They thanked us for the reference, asked to continue reminding of the contest and even made a declaration of love for our monasteries.
In its turn, the museum is grateful to everybody who has voted for the Kirillo-Belozersky and the Ferapontov Monasteries within many weeks. Thank you for your direct participation in the contest ‘Russia 10”! It is not important how you have learnt about it; the most important is that you haven’t stood aside.
We also remind active Internet users that the museum is always in contact with you in the social networking sites (Vkontakte, Facebook, Twittter).
