Nizhny Novgorod region preserves folk arts and crafts

In the Nizhny Novgorod region, an offsite meeting of the Ministry for Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation was arranged to discuss issues of preservation and development of folk arts and crafts.

"The Nizhny Novgorod region is ranked first among regions of Russia on the number of preserved types of folk arts and crafts. The participants of the meeting admitted that the region is ranked first on the level of support and lobbying the interests of arts companies on the federal level, - deputy governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Evgeny Lyulin said. - This is a totally different phenomenon - art, national heritage, national pride. Art always requires support, and the importance of folk arts and crafts is obvious - they are the soul of the country. Therefore, the state should have a different attitude to crafts that would be considerably different from the support of any other areas of production. In my opinion, it is possible to relieve folk arts and crafts companies from all taxes, except for payments to the Pension Fund," the official said. 

The director of the Department of Internal Trade, Light Industry and Consumer Market of the Ministry for Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Denis Pak, said that without support from the state, it would have been impossible to preserve such a well-known company as the Golden Khokhloma.

"This experience needs to be developed and applied in other regions, - said Denis Pak. - As a result of the meeting, there will be a protocol prepared containing a number of orders for the Ministry for Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, as well as for regional authorities. One of the main areas is the need to reduce the cost of insurance premiums for folk arts and crafts companies, because their proportion of manual labor is large, and wages, together with insurance premiums make up to 70% of the cost of production."