Guests gather at UNIC Moscow to celebrate the end of International Polar Year
On 11 February 2009, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Moscow held a special event to mark the end of International Polar Year, which ran from March 2007 to March 2009. The event included speeches, a photo exhibit and a film screening. The event was attended by approximately fifty people representing government agencies, the diplomatic corps, the academic community, artists, photographers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). All attendees, in one way or another, were related to various programmes aimed at promoting the rights and the situation of indigenous peoples and conservation of the northern environment.
The UN Resident Coordinator discussed the activities of the UN agencies in Russia related to Arctic issues and spoke on the recent discussions between the United Nations and the Governor of Hanty-Mansijsk Autonomous Region, describing them as a promising beginning to a more intensive partnership in several areas in the near future.
The main guest speaker was Mr. Viktor Dmitriev, Scientific Secretary of the St. Petersburg–based Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, who described in detail Russia’s involvement in observing International Polar Year. He pointed to an unprecedented surge in scientific activities in Russia during International Polar Year - 87 expeditions in 2007 and 72 in 2008 - affecting both the Arctic and Antarctic areas.
The event closed with the unveiling of an exhibition of photographs by Igor Georguievsky – images of Spitsbergen and Chukotka - as well as paintings by his wife Svetlana, works of art whose spirit largely draw on the cultural background of Northern indigenous peoples. Then Marina Yuzhaninova, director of the Northern Traveling Film Festival, screened a five-minute “video diary” of the most recent expedition of the Northern Traveling Film Festival to Spitsbergen.