Penza, 14 October 2013. PenzaNews. The awarding ceremony of the Penza region cultural workers, who took part in organization of the city jubilee celebrations from 13 to 15 September, with jubilee medals “In memory of 350th anniversary of Penza” was held on Monday, October 14.

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The head of culture and archive of the Penza region Evgeny Shilov remarked that even though this government award had no monetary value, it would be very precious for those people, who contributed to 350th anniversary of Penza celebration.

“People of the stage – musicians, vocalists, choir singers, and dancers – were in the limelight; when it comes to writers and poets, they also did much, maybe it was not that noticeable but everybody took an active part: museum workers, librarians, philharmonic and theatre workers. These efforts helped to create the holiday that I think turned to be unforgettable,” Evgeny Shilov said.

The head of culture and archive expressed his gratitude to the people gathered for their labor and stressed that at present the government attitude towards cultural workers is changing considerably.

“Just recently there was a board meeting of Presidential Council for Culture and Arts, where it was spoken out that culture is the foundation of the country, thus I believe in the coming year we will get the respect of the government in deed and not in name,” Evgeny Shilov noted.

While opening the awarding ceremony, the head of the city Yury Alpatov expressed the view that the number of jubilee medals is not enough.

“There are only a thousand of them, but I would give such medal to every Penza resident because we all love our land. However, today we would like to mark those who gave us the holiday,” Yury Alpatov said.

The first person to be awarded with the jubilee medal was the deputy head of culture and archive of the Penza region Kirill Zastrozhny who celebrated his 62nd birthday on October 14.

The medals were also given to the director of the Penza art gallery named after K. Savitsky Valery Sazonov, the artistic director of Penza Drama Theatre named after A. Lunacharsky Sergei Kazakov, Honoured Artist of Russia Galina Repnaya, the head of Museum and Exhibition Center of the regional folk art house Natalia Vedyaeva, the director of Theatre Arts Center “House of Meyerhold” Natalia Kugel, the executive director of the Penza region state literature memorial museums association Nadezhda Nikulaenkova and the head of the State Local History museum Vladimir Zimenkov.

In addition, a number of artists were awarded with letters of appreciation from the Penza region governor Vasily Bochkarev and the regional department of culture and archive.