St. Petersburg's Tercentenary Celebrations Will Cost 21 Times Less than Moscow's 850th Anniversary

As announced by 300online.ru, the estimate for St. Petersburg's tercentenary celebrations has been confirmed. Igor Gavrushkin, the director of the celebrations announced that USD 2 million is needed for all the celebrations, which is a very modest sum in comparison to the USD 40 million spent on Moscow's 850th anniversary.

'The majority of the funds will be spent on the official opening ceremony of the tercentenary celebrations, which will take place on the Neva', Gavrushkin announced on Friday at a press conference entitled '10 months until the tercentenary' at the International Press Centre. He said that this part of the tercentenary celebrations is the principle one, because it will be attended by the president of the Russian Federation and numerous foreign guests, and will be broadcast live on all federal television channels.

After the June 24 meeting between St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and business representatives in St. Petersburg, the latter expressed their readiness to provide the necessary financial support to specific events in the tercentenary programme. In particular, the head of Rubin, Professor Igor Spassky, fully approved of the historical programme of the official opening ceremony of St. Petersburg's tercentenary, which was developed by Eduard Kochergin, the leading artist of the Tostonov drama theatre, and intends to support it.

According to Gavrushkin, a breakthrough moment has been reached in the preparations for the tercentenary celebrations. 'Active work has now begun in the organisation of specific events', he said.