
The Polotsk project is unparalleled in Belarus. Experience of Russian Suzdal will have to be studied in detail, proprietary legal and economic bases will be developed. Director of the National Polotsk History and Culture Museum Nikolai Ilnitskiy reckons, a free economic tourism zone can be set up on experimental basis just like in Novgorod, for instance.
The project implementation will surely need huge money. But as Bishop of Polotsk and Glubokoye Feodosiy told the session, “There are no more profitable investments than investments in people”. Otherwise, we would not be able to avoid a crisis in culture and spirituality.
According to the commission’s chairperson Anatoly Novikov, the new revision of the “Museums and Museum Holding Law” is a good and important document, but for it to be of use to people, corresponding bylaws are required. The commission is ready to hear out any proposals on the point. Besides, the senators decided to approve the 2006–2015 Polotsk social and economic development programme, to suggest that the Cabinet of Ministers should assign the status of “indivisible historical and cultural centre” to Polotsk. Besides, the commission members agreed Sofia Cathedral and Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya Church should be listed as part of the world cultural heritage.
by Sergei Olesnik