Culture and art
Severstal has successfully worked in a number of rewarding collaborations with Russia's leading museums and theatres over the years.
One of our main charitable priorities is the Dialog of Cultures programme, which focuses on the support and development of cultural cooperation in our operating regions throughout the world.
Here are some of the highlights of our charitable activities:
Museums
Our work with the country's major museums, such as the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum, has led to various major exhibitions around the world.
In 2007, the Tretyakov Gallery, with Severstal's support, carried out works to create a new version of the permanent “20th Century Art” exhibition in its building at Krymskiy Val. In 2008, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus hosted the international “Orthodox Icons of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus” exhibition which featured religious paintings from the 14th to 18th centuries taken from the Tretyakov Gallery, the National Kyivo-Pecherskiy Historical and Cultural Reserve and the National Museum of the Republic of Belarus. Severstal-assisted exhibition “Russia 1900. Art and Culture in the Epoch of Last Reign” was successfully held in Germany in late 2008.
In 2008, in Oklahoma, the State Russian Museum, with Severstal's support, has held an international exhibition “American Artists from Russia, which opened in St. Petersburg in early 2009 and then in Moscow in the Tretyakov Gallery.
Our partnership with the Watercolor Painting School of Sergei Andriyaka in Moscow began in 2004. Since then, the School has mounted exhibitions and workshops in various regions of Russia.
In 2007, we sponsored the renovation of the Detroit Museum of Art, one of the six major art museums in the US. Its collection has over sixty thousand pieces including the famous fresco by Diego Rivera, who painted a blast furnace of the Rouge Industries plant in the 1930s. The plant was acquired by Severstal 70 years later.
Theatre and Dance
Our collaboration with the Bolshoi Theatre started almost nine years ago was extended in 2008 by staging “The flames of Paris”. The ballet became a landmark, not only for Russia's cultural life, but also on the world stage.
We have worked with the Mariinsky Theatre since 2003 and supported many events, including the Moscow Easter Festival (in particular a concert for the Seventh Moscow Easter Festival in Cherepovets in 2008 at which the Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater, directed by Valery Gergiev, performed).
Music
In October 2007, we were a sponsor partner for a concert in commemoration of Mstislav Rostropovich that took place in Frankfurt am Main. The concert benefitted the Rostropovich Cello Foundation, which was founded by the musician to support the development of young cello players.
Grant programme
From 2006−2009 we have introduced various competitive mechanisms for project selection, expanding our cooperation with professional charitable organisations. The “Museums of Russian North” programme is just one positive result. The object of the programme is to promote the activities of regional museums of art and foster their development as centres of local cultural life.
In 2007, we announced a grant project competition among museums of 12 regions in the Russian Northwest with a total budget around RUR 9 million. Six museums from the Vologda and Archangelsk Regions, the Komi Republic and the Karelian Republic took the top prizes.
Severstal's grant competition is currently the largest charitable provincial arts support project in the country.
