On March 13, the opening of the exhibition “Old Believer Klintsy” took place at the Soligorsk Museum of Local History. It became the first in a series of ten traveling exhibitions planned for the current year in Russia and Belarus as part of a project that received support from the Russian Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives.
Before the opening of the exhibition, a round table was held on the topic “The Old Believer heritage is relevant to the contemporary world” with the participation of important Russian and Belarusian figures in the fields of religion, culture, and pedagogy. The exhibition itself was opened by the organizers – deputy head of the educational department of the Moscow Metropolis of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church, culturologist Sergey Vladimirovich Markus, historian and religious scholar Rodion Igorevich Popel, and the author of the presented works, artist, restorer, member of the Union of Artists of Russia Dmitriy Vasilyevich Paukov. The exhibition presents the everyday life of the Old Believers of the historical regions of Bryansk, Starodub, and Gomel includes paintings, photographs, and artefacts.
In addition to paintings by Dmitriy Paukov, the exhibition includes historical photographic images from the life of Old Believer Klintsy, created by Mikhail Balakin (born 1949), contemporary photographs by Vladimir Shik, paintings by Viktoria Kovalenko, an icon by Marina Zhmurina, graphics by Olga Malyavko and Anna Leon. This is a multifaceted look at the Old Believers of the city of Klintsy, Bryansk region, through the eyes of modern artists. Some of the works will be donated to Belarusian colleagues and the Soligorsk Local History Museum.
The project is a continuation of traveling exhibitions held in 2023 in Russian cities, as well as in three cities of Belarus (Vetka, Gomel, and Minsk). Its goal is to give viewers visual images of our common past, with its Christian culture and Slavic traditions.
