Work continues on the tourist youth project “Pearl Necklace of Holy Russia.” At each meeting with curators, volunteer students exchange ideas and gain new knowledge. Participation in the project involves not only the study of history and Orthodox culture, but also the development of photographic and video filming, writing interesting materials for the future project site and Smolensk publications, and much more. News about the project’s work for the diocesan site is now also prepared by students.

On December 11, 2018, the team of “Pearl Necklace of Holy Russia” gathered again to discuss the issues of the project.

To this day, participants have already made a list of priority sightseeing objects, and also prepared two articles about the project for publication in the media.

During the meeting itself, most of the time was devoted to communication with Maxim Vladimirovich Kail, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian History, Smolensk State University, scientific project consultant. The history teacher of SmolGU spoke about how to conduct interesting excursions and what is a reliable source of information.

At the end of the conference, preliminary results were summed up and new tasks were distributed, the main of which was the beginning of work on videos. Denis Artemenko, project curator and Diocesan TV studio “Saint Mercury”, conducted a master class on video shooting with children.

There is still a lot of work, but despite this, things are moving fast, and interest in it only grows.

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The “Pearl Necklace of Holy Russia”, which became one of the winners of the Presidential grants, aimed at enhancing cooperation dioceses Smolensk, Novgorod and Pskov diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, Vitebsk, Mogilev and Polotsk Eparchy of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, universities border regions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus in the field of popularization of the spiritual and historical and cultural heritage through the development of youth tourism.

During the project, an international youth tourist route “Pearl Necklace of Holy Russia” will be created through six regions of Russia and Belarus by the students.

Among the project participants are teachers and students of the branch of the National Research University “MEI” in Smolensk; Smolensk Orthodox Theological Seminary; Smolensk State University, Smolensk State Medical University, Smolensk State Institute of Arts.