Unique archive of film director Andrey Tarkovsky was sold on November, 28 at Sotheby’s in London for 1,3 million pounds or nearly 2 million dollars. Thus initial price of a prize was 100 thousand pounds. The prize included letters of the film director, notebooks, printing versions of scripts for films, 32 audio recordings belonged to him and 13 records on disks where Tarkovsky tells about his films.
As a result archive was acquired by the official representative of the Ivanovo region. Lars von Trier who also took part in the auction failed to pay such sum.
"We can't give you the names of sponsors yet”, - the governor Mikhail Men told mass media and added that there’s no talking about budgetary funds - only money of sponsors and art patrons is involved.
Here you are a question now – what does the Ivanovo region need this archive for, it has been already decided to place it in the city of Yuryevets? Lars von Trier likely needs it for work. Who in Yuryevets needs it? Unless we have little provincial museums full with dusty different invaluable archives? I still remember archive of Batyushkov wrapped in old sheet and lying under sofa. Don’t touch, it’s national property!
Now some words about the Ivanovo region. By the size of the Gross regional product per capita in 2008 it occupied the 74th place (it used to be on the last place, after Chechnya). GRP in the region makes already 92,5 thousand rubles a year per capita! If to calculate it in dollars, we will have 3 thousand.
Average salary in the Ivanovo region is 17,7 thousand rubles (26385 rubles on the average across Russia). That is it’s almost twice below average across the country.
Thus this poor region buys at Sotheby’s some archive for 2 million dollars, without which the region can’t live further?!
Certainly, all of us understand – nothing was spent from the budget, all money belong to patrons, sponsors... After all we know how governors involve sponsors' money. If it really wasn’t possible to involve such sum for something really useful to the area?
We already got used that our oligarchs squander money – they do it demonstratively, cynically. Yachts, jets, models, dresses, balls, palaces. Against frank poverty of 80 percent of the population it looks quite barbarously. Apparently, it’s the first time the governor of the region in a pointed manner senselessly wastes such sum. The more so he is not the governor of bursting with income Krasnodar or Tyumen, he is from poor Ivanovo.
If to speak about Yuryevets with population in 10 thousand people (in 1974 - 20 thousand), it would have been possible to reanimate this town for 2 million dollars... Well, only it doesn’t seem necessary to anyone.
Yes only it, seemingly, especially isn't necessary for anybody.
А.B.
