Main results of the Shantsev Achievements Week

On 25 October 2010 the “Shantsev Achievements Week” came to a close – a competition of innovative wiki content organised by the Encyclopedia of Nizhny Novgorod, the central wiki resource of the Nizhny Novgorod region on the regional site NNOV.

Starting in October 2010, the Encyclopedia has been organising a series of “Weeks” in the form of festivals of interesting Nizhny Novgorod phenomena that have acquired considerable weight in the region's public life, with the results and various adjacent questions discussed by the region's authoritative expert community.

In October all users of the Nizhny Novgorod wikipedia were invited to expand the article about the region's highest official – Governor Valery Shantsev. An internationally recognised certificate of ownership of a plot of the lunar surface measuring one acre (approximately 4000 m2) from the Lunar Embassy in Moscow – “a prize for a true connoisseur of innovation” – was chosen as the reward for the festival's most active participant. Given the theme of the competition, the Presidium of the Encyclopedic Council also selected, as prizes to motivate the participants taking second and third place, a “Strazhnik” MP-461 non-lethal pistol – “protect yourself and your family” – and a T-shirt with an original drawing on the competition's theme.

In the course of the “Week” the editors recorded the addition to the Nizhny Novgorod wikipedia of accounts of Shantsev's support for the hockey club, of the development of the region's schools, and of which army the Nizhny Novgorod governor served in and in what capacity. No other texts about achievements were created. At the same time, engineer Igor Karpov, whose attention is turned towards the near historical perspective, wrote a detailed letter to the editors in which he noted that Valery Shantsev should be judged not by his existing achievements but by his future ones, among which he named the restoration of the Nizhny Novgorod Arsenal and the establishment there of a national Memorial) to the Nizhny Novgorod Militia ("Perhaps our governor's contribution, as far as he is able, to this splendid project will be one of his achievements — only in the foreseeable future…"). The engineer declined the prize – the pistol – on patriotic grounds.

Awarding the competition participants and the gala dinner

On 5 November, at the music café “Fonoteka”, the results of the “Week” were summed up at a ceremonial gala dinner: the presentation of prizes to the winners, a session of the Encyclopedia's Expert Club in the "Tibetan Room" and informal mingling among those present: friends of the winners and members of the NNOV and NN.RU internet forums.

The 1st prize went to WWW.NNOV.RU user “Podsnezhnik” (Tatyana Serova); the 3rd prize, an original T-shirt from “Mustang's Little Shop”, went to user Evgeny Kopylov.

Round table

Drawing on the thematic content collected within the framework of the Week, the Encyclopedia's editors submitted engineer I. Karpov's civic project (see the Appendix) to the experts for discussion and convened a Round table on the theme of securing national unity.

The Moderator) of the round table, one of the founders of the “Encyclopedia of Nizhny Novgorod”, culturologist Sergey Dresvyannikov, defined the purpose of the meeting as the search for practical ways to speed up society's information metabolism without spilling the national unity accumulated in the region and while preserving the best examples of applied patriotism.

The “Round table” was made up of two sections – of imaginative and of rational thinking: the humanitarian technologists, comprising a psychologist, a fashion designer, an artist, a photographer and a “simplicchio” expert – a member of the “Human Development” internet forum – and the professional managers: a television director and producer, the head of an internet company, the editor-in-chief of a weekly newspaper, a historian and leader of an internet project, and an independent tarot consultant. Splitting into groups of five, the experts discussed the main trends, periodically staging debates between the sections with the moderator's help. In effect, the table became the first factory of meanings within the “Nizhny Novgorod Encyclopedia”.

Each of the experts shared conclusions drawn from their own practice and field of knowledge. The head of the internet company NNOV.RU, Ilya Osipov, spoke about the particulars of accelerating the turnover of information in modern conditions: why he does not watch local television and how he learned English with the help of the internet.

A report on the state of Cuba was heard. Tarot reader Evgeny Eremin spoke about the practices that help Cubans with self-identification: “My sling is the sling of David” and “Whoever does not jump is a Yankee”. The information metabolism of the people of Nizhny Novgorod themselves would be intensified by a carnival procession-mystery play held on City Day, Russia Day, the Day of Reconciliation and Accord and on other patriotic holidays. In the course of the mystery play, Mr Eremin particularly noted, the city's vivid patriotic moments are lived through and national unity is strengthened.

Television presenter and producer of the First Nizhny Novgorod Internet Television Igor Churdalev examined in detail the reasons why the generalised “PetroState” – the oil-extracting state – cannot find support among the population. The main reason, in his view, is the soullessness of technocracy and the grinding of the identities of the small peoples of the Russian Federation down to a single standard. Such a situation is the result of unlearned lessons of history. Nizhny Novgorod was founded (or seized from the local population) as an outpost of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality in the Volga Region, and for several centuries became the centre of the process of Slavic colonisation moving eastwards.

The process by which the empire was formed here consisted in the local population – in the Nizhny Novgorod case, the Mordvin and Mari tribes – adopting elements of a common culture and changing their self-identification. As a result of the successful actions of the militia of Kozma Minin, whose figure the peoples of the Volga closely associate with their own liberation movement, the human resources of Slavic colonisation were confined within the bounds of an already sparsely populated Muscovy, without the other Slavic countries of Europe. For that reason the process of the formation of the future Russian state did not take on a mono-ethnic character, as in France or Turkey, and was not a «total colonisation», as happened in the USA and Australia. As a result, many people of Nizhny Novgorod can now be seen worshipping the simplified ideologemes tossed to them by centralised propaganda. The trouble is that most of these people could hardly be called good workers. Such Nizhny Novgorod residents became imperialists only by becoming malingerers in life.

Psychologist and expert on questions of personal growth Vladimir Katashev explained in detail the working of the mechanisms of social suggestion in modern society, as well as the direct and feedback links between self-presentation and the quality of self-awareness. Fashion designer and leader of sensitivity trainings Elena Abrosimova stated the need for creative work with the mechanisms of one's own life, in particular the need for all active market participants to lend an instrumental quality to their own self-concept. Evgenia Novruzova, editor-in-chief of "Novaya Gazeta v Nizhnem Novgorode", noted that qualitative growth in journalism that does not pay for itself is necessary for society under a global economy. She expressed confidence that the forces that need quality journalism come from the patriotic regional business community.

The image that can unite the people of Nizhny Novgorod is the image of the Polish king Sigismund. The experts discussed the possibility of a ritual whereby the expulsion of the king and then the “destruction of him within oneself” could become a distinctive part of the carnival procession. In closing the discussion, professional photographer Lev Soldatov drew those present to the fact that the laws of beauty are common to all people: perceiving them and submitting to them does not depend on language or nationality.

The round table resulted in two main invariants of national unity – following the laws of beauty and naturalness (an aesthetic of the urban environment suited to the climate and fitted into the landscape is the foundation not only of unity but, evidently, of the population's elementary capacity for work) on the one hand, and a common psycho-emotional state expressed in the experiencing of a certain archetypal situation of the masses on the other.

Summarizing these data, the historian Pyotr Kuznetsov noted that the consciousness of Volga dwellers, regardless of ethnic affiliation, is characterized by effective work within the mental space of city-states (Erzyan Mastor, even if virtual, brings much joy to the Erzya Mordvins). Even the The City of Gorky was, in a certain sense, a specialized city-state. The involuntary attempt to turn Nizhny Novgorod residents into people with a pronounced imperial self-awareness — as happens with natives of St. Petersburg, where the income of the enormous city is a function purely of the well-being of the empire as a whole — that attempt failed: Nizhny Novgorod residents are now characterized by a detached attitude toward their own work: “I am here as if by chance.” The era of great European colonization is coming to an end, and countries that fail to move away from its extensive practices into the space of open informational governance (first and foremost, the self-governance of the peoples that make up the super-ethnos) will grow weaker, neighboring on global forms of mass integration.

Empires are being eroded and absorbed by globalist culture from within; we see this in the examples of France, Great Britain, Germany, the USA, and lately even China. Here the potential that the Nizhny Novgorod region carries in its experience may turn out to be not a problem but, on the contrary, a salvation for the Russian super-ethnos, and a qualitatively new stage in the evolution of Russian statehood, in the strategic perspective.

The experts put forward the following recommendations:

  • To include in the program of the City Day a theatrical procession reflecting the events of the Nizhny Novgorod Militia. This “volunteer army” can and should — according to historical logic — pass through the The Kremlin; it is desirable to include in the scenario of the celebration a meeting of the leading officials of the city, the region, and the chairman of the Regional Legislative Assembly with the “leaders of the volunteer army.” A separate demonstration, in the form of a mystery play accessible to every Nizhny Novgorod resident, may also be held on 4 November — the day of the expulsion of the Polish-Lithuanian invaders from Moscow. In that case the Volunteer Army could march from Zelensky Descent (having gathered at the copy of the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky) to the Central Museum of the Volunteer Army, which it indeed makes sense to create in the building of the Nizhny Novgorod Arsenal, according to the idea of I. Karpov.
  • To consider it expedient to provide informational support to the Volga peoples, the Erzya and the Moksha, and in particular to the ethnographic museum in the town of Lukoyanov.
  • To petition the government of the Russian Federation on the matter of organizing an all-Russian memorial to the Second (Nizhny Novgorod) Volunteer Army, its inclusion in national tourist programs, and the development of an official patriotic ritual of veneration of the historical banner of the Volunteer Army.

All the recommendations were submitted to the authorities of the Nizhny Novgorod region, as was the project of the engineer I. Karpov.

Address by I. Karpov

Dear Valery Pavlinovich! Compatriots! Let us do everything possible, each according to his ability, and we shall accomplish this good deed! The “Saviours of the Fatherland” memorial in Nizhny Novgorod shall be! The 400th anniversary of the astonishing feat of the people’s volunteer army under the leadership of Minin and Pozharsky is approaching (1612–2012). In Nizhny Novgorod, from the walls of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, a column of warriors, having received a blessing, set out for Moscow and liberated the city and the country from the Polish-Lithuanian invasion. In that same cathedral, in 1617, the great patriot of the Russian land Kozma Minin was buried. The church has not survived.

Now only the building of the Arsenal (1841–43) stands here. At present the large Arsenal building (an object of cultural heritage of FEDERAL SIGNIFICANCE !) is being renovated, and on its wall hangs a verbose banner — “Modern art for the modern person”… It is shameful and inadmissible that to this day a small exposition dedicated to the people’s volunteer army is squeezed into the Ivanskaya Tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. This unforgivable MISTAKE must be corrected and historical justice restored. It is right in mind and in heart for a citizen to see here the “Saviours of the Fatherland” memorial, worthy of the memory of its finest sons, with special decoration and recognized relics, which would place it on a par with the well-known museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg. I ask you to allocate funds for the arrangement of the memorial and the creation of a working group of specialists under the supervision of Governor V. P. Shantsev, so that work may begin without delay, in order to:

  • 1) resolve organizational tasks, the question of accelerating the renovation of the building and the future subordination of the memorial being created, given its importance, possibly directly to the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region;
  • 2) return from Moscow and place in the museum building, in time for its opening, the greatest sacred relic — the genuine banner of the Nizhny Novgorod volunteer army;
  • 3) allocate a special place in the museum for the display of Makovsky)’s painting Minin's Appeal (one of the largest canvases in Russia), for which purpose it should be moved here from the former Sirotkin mansion, since the painting ought to be in a spacious hall, with a good view and perspective, of which it is now clearly deprived;
  • 4) appeal to the administrations of the cities of Moscow, Yaroslavl and others along the route of the volunteer army’s march, with a request to share and present to the new museum individual exhibits connected with the history of the volunteer army;
  • 5) install in front of the entrance to the memorial a copy of the monument to Kozma Minin (from the original monument installed in Balakhna. This monument formerly stood for many years in the centre of Nizhny Novgorod and was respected by many generations of Nizhny Novgorod residents);
  • 6) provide in the memorial building for a special cinema hall for meetings of prominent people of the city with the public on themes of the history of the city and the Nizhny Novgorod land;
  • 7) open a special account for donations from private individuals with the aim of supporting the project.

Without the personal participation of Governor V. P. Shantsev this undertaking cannot be raised. Is it not from this that many of our misfortunes arise — that we honour with love neither our heroic ancestors themselves nor the land connected with them?… Once Kozma Minin, having gathered money and an army, accomplished what seemed impossible. It is necessary to give the History of the Russian State its due, so that on the Arsenal building a banner with different words would appear: “To the modern person — in memory of the legendary Nizhny Novgorod volunteer army,” along with a stele bearing the year of the museum’s founding and the names of the patrons. A serious event awaits us, one conducive to the consolidation of our society.

A Nizhny Novgorod resident, engineer Igor Karpov, chairman of the “Arsenal 2010” society (Perhaps our governor’s feasible participation in this remarkable project will be one of his achievements, only in the foreseeable future…)

Short autobiography

Igor Karpov, born in the last century, in 1961 in Nizhny Novgorod. At present I am still here. After finishing secondary school (1978) I worked as a fitter, then served — without grieving — in the Soviet army (1979–1981). In 1986 I graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod higher school GISI, after which I “played” in the well-known performance “about production” in the role of a foreman, then head of a sizeable team. During the interval, I visited 9 countries of the world, of which the dearest to me was the town of Nazareth (Israel). In 2002 I married, and I have two children. Public activity:

  • 1997 — 1st place in a competition on the theme of the city’s public life. Administration of Nizhny Novgorod and the newspaper "Аргументы и факты"
  • 2000 — Commendation for the development of a new technology in the information policy of Russia. Administration of the President of the Russian Federation

Reference information

As of today, the Encyclopedia includes 916 separate articles, 3675 pages, and 1771 images, illustrations, diagrams and photographs. The technical development of the Nizhny Novgorod Encyclopedia was carried out over the course of 7 months. Specialists of the company NNOV.RU combined the WikiMedia software with internet services popular in the region: forums, corporate blogs, image galleries, file hosting, and the private messaging system used on the popular city portals www.nnov.ru, www.nn.ru, nnover.ru. Also available on the pages of the encyclopedia is a service that so far has no analogues among the city portals of Nizhny Novgorod — an interactive panorama of Nizhny Novgorod streets and squares in high resolution, allowing one to look around the area and take a walk through summertime Nizhny Novgorod. The improvements to the services being carried out by the specialists of NNOV are aimed at making acquaintance with the region vivid and many-sided.

See also