The regular meeting of the Public Council of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve was about two most topical issues at present. First they listed the decisions of the previous meeting that was held in February 2015 and then discussed the current questions of the agenda.
The first item touched a rather topical subject: provision of comfortable conditions for tourists in the Kirillov district. A.V. Yulin, deputy head of the Kirillov District Administration, spoke about the actual state of affairs and near-term prospects. He mentioned the key moments influencing reception of guests: from public catering enterprises and accommodation to tour programs. However, he also paid attention to the issues of transport infrastructure, information space and new places of interest in Kirillov.
Mikhail Sharomazov, director of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve, reported about creation of favourable conditions for tourists on the museum grounds. “One of our main tasks is to make visitors’ staying as comfortable as possible”, he underlined. The museum has received over 1,4 million tourists within the last five years. Over 300 thousand people visit it every year. The number of tourists who come to Kirillov on their own without any help of travel agencies increases considerably within the last years.
It is taken into account when making new permanent and temporary exhibitions: they are equipped with modern multimedia devices, are supplemented with detailed inscriptions and audio guides for individual visitors’ convenience. The number of exhibitions and the range of events held by the museum have significantly increased. Besides, improvement of the ensemble of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery is also going on. Thanks to the restoration work, the appearance of the architectural monuments is gradually improving. A lot of attention is paid to the quality of tour programs.
Constant work is also carried out in one more direction – information policy of the museum. At present the website www.kirmuseum.ru plays the main role in its formation. But this resource created in 2008 has become technologically outdated. Therefore it is being modernized with the assistance of the Ministry of Culture of the RF. A.I. Smirnov, head of the Information Department, told about it at the meeting. At present the work on the creation of new website has been almost completed. It is being filled with materials and tested. It will be launched soon.
The second and the third issues of the agenda were about the ensemble of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. S.B. Kulikov, chief architect of the Federal State Budgetary Unitary Enterprise “Central Scientific and Restoration Design Workshops”, presented the concept of preservation and use of the federal monument. He told about elaboration of the design documentation connected with assignment of a new status to the museum. The matter concerns the status of a place of interest – the historic environment protected by the state.
