Visiting Arts, in partnership with British Council and the Vladimir Potanin Foundation Moscow, delivered a 10-day study visit for a group of museum curators from across the Russian Federation in june this year.  The visit was a prize for the winners of the best submission to the Vladimir Potanin Foundation’s Changing Museums in a Changing World competition.

The prize winners were:

• Elena Dmitrieva, Museum of Pastila (famous local traditional sweet), Kolomna


• Anna Shvyreva, Stavropol local history and culture museum  Tatiana Eshina, Pushkinskiye Gory Memorial, Literary and Landscape Museum-Reserve


• Olga Turkina, Simbirsk local history/period museum


• Natalia Potapova, Lights of Moscow museum


• Ludmila Safonova, Belaya Kalitva local history museum

Also accompanying the group were Natalia Samoilenko, deputy director general of the Vladimir Potanin Foundation, Anna Genina and Alexandra Smirnova from British Council Moscow, Inna Prilezhaeva representing the Association of Cultural Managers, and Natalia Nikitina from the museum of the Pastila Kolomna.

The study visit included a context setting morning in London at British Council Spring Gardens, with presentations from Helen Cooper of the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), Fiona Talbott of the Heritage Lottery Foundation (HLF) and Sue Cassell of the National Trust.   Museum visits in London and the Midlands were chosen to reflect the professional interests of the varied group.  Museums visited in London were the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, Keats House, the Ragged School Museum and Dennis Severs’ House.  Regional mesuems visited were the Ashmolean Pitt Rivers Museum, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Wightwick Manor, Bantock House, Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Back to Backs, Warwick Castle and Shakespeare’s Birthplace museum.