From the “Grand Hotel Europe” to the BDT: a trip around St. Petersburg together with the “Anton is right here” foundation

Today, with the sup­port of the Go To Star bureau, a three-day trip around St. Peters­burg with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of cul­tur­al fig­ures has start­ed. The tour from the Grand Hotel Europe with stops at muse­ums, bars, restau­rants and the House of Radio is not only for enter­tain­ment — all the pro­ceeds will go to the imple­men­ta­tion of Anton’s Right Here pro­grams to sup­port peo­ple with autism and their fam­i­lies. We talked with friends of the foun­da­tion about how impor­tant and need­ed help is today.

Her­mitage

“Grandee
Hotel Europe»

muse­um Joseph Brod­sky “A room and a half”

secret
bar

“House Radio»

house Lubov Arkus

BDT

ABOUT TRAVEL

The start­ing point of the tour is the Grand Hotel Europe. Here Nicholas II arranged diplo­mat­ic recep­tions, and Anna Akhma­to­va made appoint­ments. And right there, cul­tur­al fig­ures will meet with the par­tic­i­pants of the trip. Togeth­er with direc­tor Alexan­der Sokurov, every­one will go to the Her­mitage, where, among oth­er things, his film “Russ­ian Ark” was filmed. The next loca­tion will be the One and a Half Room Muse­um, where a meet­ing with a friend of Joseph Brod­sky, archi­tect and art his­to­ri­an Mikhail Milchik, will take place. Next, actress Var­vara Shmyko­va will read her favorite poems of the poet in a secret bar.

The musi­cal group musi­cAeter­na will show a spe­cial choral pro­gram led by choir­mas­ter Vitaly Polon­sky at the Radio House. From there, the par­tic­i­pants will move to vis­it Lyubov Arkus, a film crit­ic, direc­tor, and pub­lish­er of the Seance mag­a­zine. There they will be wait­ing for a pic­ture about Alex­ei Bal­a­banov “Requiem. Bel­fry”, and also an acquain­tance with the director’s wife, cos­tume design­er Nadezh­da Vasi­lye­va.

The next day, in the his­tor­i­cal inte­ri­ors of the Grand Hotel Europe, at break­fast, the cre­ative direc­tor of Russ­ian Gems, Dani­il Berg, will share sto­ries from pro­duc­tion and talk about the rela­tion­ship between the hotel and the jew­el­ry house. The last loca­tion of the tour will be BDT. More pre­cise­ly, behind the scenes of the the­ater — with artis­tic direc­tor Andrei Moguchiy and actress Nina Usato­va. Also, par­tic­i­pants will be able to get into the work­shops of silk-screen print­ing, ceram­ics, sewing and graph­ics, where the stu­dents of “Anton is right here” cre­ate.

The gas­tro­nom­ic pro­gram will not yield to the cul­tur­al one: sev­er­al projects will pre­pare author’s sets for the tour. On the pro­gram: spe­cial cock­tails from the El Copi­tas bar, a spe­cial menu from the restau­rants Har­vest, Birch, Bour­gouis Bohemi­ans and Coco­cou­ture.

Lyubov Arcus

Founder of the Anton is Right Here Foun­da­tion

Now it is vital for all of us to lean against some­one’s strong back, and if there is enough core and courage, to become a sup­port for oth­ers our­selves. The Anton Is Right Here Foun­da­tion is lucky: we have both. In the Sep­tem­ber jour­ney, we will pass this pow­er fur­ther along the chain. Friends of the Foun­da­tion — all those whom we espe­cial­ly cher­ish, those who have become a sup­port for us in dif­fi­cult times — togeth­er (it is impos­si­ble to imag­ine what luck!) will pass this knowl­edge on to the guests of the autumn tour. And the guests will pass it on to those they love, or maybe to a ran­dom, fleet­ing fel­low trav­el­er on the train. And our com­mon inner strength with you will increase and nev­er end.

Daniel Berg

design­er

Help­ing each oth­er is a com­plete­ly nat­ur­al human need, which fills my heart with warmth and helps, like cir­cles on water, to trans­fer warmth and kind­ness from per­son to per­son. Dur­ing the tour, I want to tell you how the lux­u­ry hotel of St. Peters­burg, the Grand Hotel Europe, where Nicholas II held diplo­mat­ic recep­tions, and one of the old­est jew­el­ry com­pa­nies in Rus­sia, found­ed in 1912 by decree of the last emper­or, are con­nect­ed. We will talk about the fam­i­ly tra­di­tions of the Russ­ian aris­toc­ra­cy that have sur­vived to this day, and what role jew­el­ry played in them. Why world jew­el­ry hous­es still use Russ­ian Gems tech­nolo­gies. I will tell you about the items that col­lec­tors around the world are chas­ing, and how we cre­ate mod­ern jew­el­ry with Russ­ian gems.

Alexan­der Sokurov

pro­duc­er

There are many char­i­ta­ble efforts in Rus­sia. Many need help. I am cer­tain­ly not active enough in this. But I can’t refuse Lyubov Arkus and the Anton is Right Here Foun­da­tion, because Lyu­ba and her asso­ciates are doing a great job. Because her whole life and every­thing she does in this life is illu­mi­nat­ed by human love and patience. Tal­ent, hard work. Self­less. Ser­vice. The Her­mitage is my pier in Peters­burg, a refuge, an ark. I have been encour­ag­ing every­one to come here for a long time. You will always be wel­come there. In the cold Peters­burg months, this is the place where it is warm. Res­cu­ing. Qui­et. Still, there was a mir­a­cle in my life — work on the film “Russ­ian Ark”. He filmed in the Her­mitage. We also have to go along the paths-roads of this film.

Var­vara Shmyko­va

actress

In my opin­ion, the worst thing that can hap­pen to a per­son is indif­fer­ence. I like to help, maybe because I grew up in a large fam­i­ly. And for me, it’s a giv­en. Mutu­al assis­tance and sup­port, as two guide­lines, are always with me through life. Thanks to the fact that many videos and inter­views of Brod­sky have been pre­served, we see how charm­ing and fun­ny he is. When read­ing his poet­ry, it is dif­fi­cult to sep­a­rate the author from the per­son, and you fall in love with him com­plete­ly and com­plete­ly as a per­son and with his poet­ry as part of his world. It is espe­cial­ly rev­er­ent to read his poems not only in the house, which was espe­cial­ly impor­tant to him, but also at a meet­ing with a close friend. I hope that after our evening at the One and a Half Room Muse­um, the guests of the trip will want to re-read the great poems again and, per­haps, dis­cov­er some­thing new in the work of Joseph Alexan­drovich Brod­sky.

Vitaly Polon­sky

chief choir­mas­ter of the musi­cAeter­na choir

A per­son is hap­py when he can help oth­ers — such is the nature of Homo sapi­ens. Help­ing oth­ers, we help our­selves to feel our need, to under­stand the nature of love and kind­ness. Artists and musi­cians, emo­tion­al and sen­si­tive peo­ple, respond espe­cial­ly warm­ly to trou­bles and injus­tice.

musi­cAeter­na strives to live and work in har­mo­ny, and har­mo­ny is based on com­pas­sion, love and belong­ing to a great cause. The Anton Is Right Here Foun­da­tion is doing a very big job, and we are hap­py to sup­port peo­ple who pro­fess love, kind­ness, sin­cer­i­ty — those val­ues ​​that we cer­tain­ly share.

Artem and Alex­ei Greben­shchikov

chefs and own­ers of Bour­geois Bohemi­ans

When we are asked why we do char­i­ty work and why it is impor­tant to do it, the answer aris­es by itself: why not, if there is such an oppor­tu­ni­ty? The world is full of imper­fec­tions, and beau­ti­ful, and we all have the pow­er to make it bet­ter and pro­vide dis­in­ter­est­ed help. We are glad that more and more peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions under­stand the impor­tance of coop­er­a­tion with foun­da­tions. Our task is to pop­u­lar­ize these inten­tions, because any of our and your actions can save a life or make it brighter.