On 4 November, VDNH will celebrate Russia's Unity Day and the Night of Arts. The programme includes themed guided tours and lectures in online and offline formats. Admission is free.
Guided tours
Free themed guided tours for Unity Day have been prepared by flagship museum projects of Russia's Main Exhibition—the Cosmonautics and Aviation Centre, the Slovo Centre for Slavic Writing and the VDNH Museum. The tours will be held offline, in accordance with all anti-coronavirus prescriptions of Rospotrebnadzor. Some of them will be streamed live.
Guided tours titled I Will Not Forget the Friends I Made In Moscow will start at VDNH Museum at 12:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. on 4 and 5 November. Visitors will learn more about Russia's Main Exhibition, the friendship of Soviet nations, the parades of victories and the All-Peoples University. The guided tour will feature various interactive exhibits, artefacts, video archives, photographs from different periods of VDNH's history and much more. Attendance is free by prior registration.
Peace in the Universe themed guided tours dedicated to space exploration by major superpowers and countries' collaboration in space will be held in the Cosmonautics and Aviation Centre at 1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. on 4 November. Attendance is free by prior registration.
Guided tours titled How Written Language United the People will start in the Slovo Centre for Slavic Writing at 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on Unity Day. Visitors will learn about the history of the Cyrillic alphabet, how it spread beyond the borders of Russia, which nations used it and still use it today. Attendance is free by prior registration.
Each guided tour is intended for a group of up to 20 people. Visitors will be required to present a QR code at the entrance, confirming vaccination against COVID-19, a negative PCR test or a recent recovery, as well as a proof of identity. Visitors are expected to wear face masks and keep a social distance in the pavilions.
Online activities
Themed guided tours will be streamed live in VDNH's official Odnoklassniki, Vkontakte and Facebook groups on 4 November: 3:00 p.m.—How Written Language United the People, 5:00 p.m.—Peace in the Universe. Links to live streams will become available shortly before the scheduled times.
A live stream of the Unity in Outer Space lecture from the Cosmonautics and Aviation Centre will start in VDNH's official Odnoklassniki group at 7:00 p.m. on 4 November. Viewers will get to learn about the Soviet space exploration programme.
At the same time, VDNH's official Vkontakte group will start streaming the Iconographer Gone Mad: Unusual Russian Art lecture organised by the Slovo Centre for Slavic Writing and timed to coincide with the Night of Arts. The lecture will talk about why old Russian paintings are often incomprehensible or even shocking to the unprepared eye. Lecturer Nikolai Butskikh is the founder of the Zelo Research Centre of the Ancient Rus' Culture, instructor of Church Slavonic, translator and curator of ancient Russian manuscripts at the National Library of Russia.