RUSSIA     2008  

Kozmodemyansk and Kazan
March 10–16, 2008

Three-day seminars were held in both Kozmodemyansk and Kazan in mid-March. The seminar in Kozmodemyansk was rescheduled from fall 2007, and at the suggestion of the Russian Museum the rescheduled seminar was combined with a seminar requested by Kazan. Both seminars were led by Jillian Poole, CEO of The Fund, and facilitated by Olga Reva, The Fund’s longtime translator and colleague to whom we are deeply grateful. We were joined during our entire stay by Tamara Yakoleva and Olga Bondar from the Russian Museum.

Kozmodemyansk is a small, economically-depressed town on the Volga River in the Mari El Republic, population 22,000 and shrinking. It has four small museums: the art museum, an outdoor ethnographic museum, a 19th Century merchant’s house, and the Humor Museum. These museums are almost entirely dependent upon three months of tourist river traffic. During the seminar we encouraged options for serving local residents during the off-season and had the impression some of these ideas might be implemented.

The art museum gathered 45 participants for the seminar representing ten very different museums from the town and from communities in the Mari El Republic; they were joined by 9 participants from the museums of Nizhniy Novgorod in the neighboring Republic. The group was interested, involved and completely engaged for the three days. It was noteworthy that two of them had read Managing for Money.

The seminar began with a representative of each institution describing their museum, its most important accomplishment in the past year, and its three greatest concerns for the future. These included funding, staff, equipment and storage shortages, lack of audience, administrative challenges with dealing with ‘authorities,’ and acquisitions. We succeeded in addressing all topics.

The first topic that was covered focused on the importance of a mission statement. This led to discussions of core competence and ways they could attract people to their institutions. In the days that followed, we distributed Fund consultant Barbara Charles’ checklist for assessing exhibitions from the visitor perspective (which is on The Fund’s website). Participants then visited the local museums to evaluate them against the list and then created programs while bearing in mind the list’s criteria. They discussed ways of promoting and marketing these projects. Merchandizing opportunities were also developed and fundraising options explored, including techniques for implementation.

One lunch hour Jillian Poole and the Russian Museum team visitors walked out on the ice of the wide and gloriously glistening Volga River to explore ice fishing and talk with the fishermen. This was great fun and a new experience for us all.

Lamentably, the final “fish-boil” party, a local custom, was cancelled when Ms. Poole was summoned to appear before the Militia. The mistaken complaint was visa irregularities—not having a business visa. After much discussion, she was told to pay a 2,000 ruble fine. She declined to do so. Later she was asked to sign a document conceding that she had received a warning for an infraction of the laws. She declined. The surprised authorities ultimately found a face-saving way for them to dismiss charges. We later discovered the summons probably stemmed from a local political retribution.

According to comments on the evaluation forms and those made to our Russian Museum colleagues, the participants were highly satisfied with the seminar results. The Nizhniy Novgorod team asked for a Fund seminar next year, and we assured them their request will have high priority.

Kazan is the capital of the Tartar Republic. Its language, Tartar, and customs are deeply rooted in history. Its Kremlin is renowned. The city has some twenty museums considered of importance as well as a number of smaller ones.

The seminar group was comprised of some 30 staff members representing thirteen different organizations—museums, art schools, music organizations, and a union of schools—an unexpected selection since we had been told it would be a museum audience. It was clear almost from the outset that some held and were prepared to defend convictions and management practices rooted in the middle of the last century, while others were readily accepting current best-practices. This dichotomy produced some tension, but their diversity made for interesting, if not always cohesive, discussions, particularly in the group-work sessions.

As they introduced themselves, we noted and listed areas of greatest interest/concern. In many ways they shared concerns reflected in Kosmodemyansk. And, once again, their introductions clearly indicated little understanding of mission. Ms. Poole reviewed the concerns with the group, prioritized them, and agreed to address issues raised. This changed the original direction and schedule of the seminar program which was designed for public relations and marketing, although many elements of the original topics outline were incorporated.

Under the rubric of Building a Constituency for Your Institution, groups did exercises on ways of enlisting volunteers for various fundraising, public relations, merchandizing, and marketing. We talked in depth about press relations, merchandizing, and marketing. The groups developed a variety of promotion ideas, and were particularly intrigued by the possibilities of “viral marketing.” Once again we distributed Barbara Charles’ visitor assessment document and they applied it to their visit to the art museum. This produced rich discussions and perceptive comments.

Review of the evaluation forms gave the seminar high marks—a couple of participants were so candid they wanted assurance that their directors would not see their comments!

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