Russia's main exhibition complex invites everyone to spend their holidays in a useful and meaningful way. The contents of the winter season's online programme will be fun for adults and children alike. The events will stream on the social media pages of VDNH and its residents. Attendance is free, but some events require prior registration.
The online programme will open with an event hosted by the Slovo Centre of Slavic Writing. Right before New Year's Eve, on 30 December, viewers are in for a poetry evening with the DeadPoets Band. The theatre company will invoke the poetry of Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Sergei Yesenin, Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky and Daniil Kharms to conjure up a magical holiday atmosphere. The show will stream on the VDNH VKontakte community at 6:00 p.m.
Later on during the holidays, at 3:00 p.m. on 3 January, the Slovo Centre will be offering a master class in calligraphy. The participants will learn to make a calligraphic composition centred on a penguin, the mascot of 'Antarctic Winter at VDNH'. Heart-felt Season's Greetings or favourite poetry lines will fold into a cute penguin silhouette. The participants can use regular pens on paper ruled in a special way. The Slovo Centre will post a link to download the ruled paper template on its website one hour before the class. The class will stream on the VDNH VKontakte page.
A lecture/concert by Alexander Matochkin, performed at the Slovo Centre, will stream on the VDNH VKontakte page at 3:00 p.m. on 6 January. Matochkin, a philologist and ethnographer, will explain the meaning of Christmas in folk culture, citing different forms of Russian oral folk poetry on the topic. The lecturer will perform traditional Christmas songs: troparions, carols, vinogradya and bylina. Matochkin's 'surprise' number will be a French Christmas carol in Russian translation, performed to an accordion accompaniment.
On 7 January, at 12:00 noon, children and their parents are invited to watch an online performance of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, played by Knowledge. VDNH project resident, Konstantin Kozhevnikov's Storytelling Theatre. Centuries ago, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann wrote The Nutcracker, the story of an enchanted youth saved by the power of the love of a little girl who believed in miracles. But is the traditional story so old as to be irrelevant? Is there something in it we are yet to discover? This Nutcracker, performed two hundred years on, is an investigative play that, while fascinating the kids with its magic, gives the grownups glimpses of some novel facets of love. The show will stream on the VDNH Facebook page.
At 3:00 p.m. on the same day, the Readers' Club will hold its Christmas talk online. The meeting will be moderated by Yegor Sartakov, Candidate of Philology, Senior Lecturer at the School of Journalism, Mikhail Lomonosov State University of Moscow. The talk will explore different aspects of the genre of Christmas tale to see how it evolved in the 20th century. The participants will discuss Nikolai Gogol's novella Christmas Eve, the short story The Heavenly Christmas Tree by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the poem Christmas Romance by Joseph Brodsky. The event will take place at Zoom space. Advance registration is required. The talk will also stream on the VDNH VKontakte page, where it requires no prior registration to be watched.
From 2 to 10 January, the Technograd Innovation and Education Complex invites children aged 4 to 14 to join its online project Technograd for Kids. Technograd has amusements in store to suit every taste: creative workshops, online game room with popular board games, classes to hone one's imagination and acumen, quizzes and quests, Mafia Club membership and online chemical experiments. The event will take place at Zoom space. Advance registration is required.
The historical park Russia, My History has deployed a Back to the New Year! bot for the holidays. The game, presented in a textual quest format, offers a range of past epochs for the viewer to visit: talk to a Streltsy guardsman while visiting Peter the Great, laugh with the cosmonauts on the orbit, attend a Soviet family celebration in the guise of a distant relative, sing the Little Fir song in 1903 or find out why it is customary to gift not one, not three but two tangerines in China. The quest is available on Telegram and VKontakte. In addition, the park will be posting a thread of Christmas Story themed online content on its VKontakte, Instagram and YouTube communities all through the holidays.
The Pchelovodstvo Environment Education Centre will also join its VDNH neighbours online. Pchelovodstvo will be running themed master classes and games daily on its VKontakte and Instagram pages. The participants will learn how to make Christmas themed hats and how to build a massive fireworks display. The other options are to go on a winter research expedition or play at New Year's Eve fortune-telling.
The winter season continues in full swing at Russia's No. 1 exhibition. Its topic this year is 'Antarctic Winter at VDNH'. Visit the VDNH website to learn about all VDNH online events.