Happy International Museum Day!

Let me send you my warmest congratulations on this very special for all of us event – International Museum Day!

It was created in 1977 and every year it becomes more and more popular and broad. This year it is celebrated in more than 100 countries and more than 30000 museums from different parts of the world! This year the theme of the International Museum Day is “Museums for social harmony”. I think that main museum aims: preservation of the cultural and natural heritage and therefore –collective memory, education and consequently – training of the future generations. These aims first of all are directed at creation of the social harmony in our society in our complicated time. Because only preserving and knowing our heritage we could advance to the future.

So let me wish you all the best, good luck and patience, because all we know that museums are always between last lines of the governmental or corporative budgets, but museum is one of the few institutions that could teach us how to maintain dialogue, how to be tolerant, how to be creative, how to make something different, how to be a part of the society, to develop it and to develop yourself!

With kind regards,

Vladimir Tolstoy
ICOM Russia President