THE FAIRY EXPRESS COMPLETED A JOURNEY

On March 27, 2011 the Week of Books for Children in halls of the Russian State Children’s Library came to its end. Being initiated by Lev Kassil (1905 - 1970) as “Book’s nameday” in Moscow in 1943 and gained national success in 1944, it was held by the Russian State Children’s Library in cooperation with the Center for Aesthetic Education for Children and Youth “Museion”  under the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art and the Mardjani Foundation as “The Fairy Express”.

 

To make it distinctive from what was done in previous sessions this year the organizers decided to pay attention both to the real world and a fabulous realm of dreams and imaginary.  This year the central concept of the action was a journey through countries of The Great Silk Road. The colourful domain of national culture and everyday life through children artworks and fairytales, joint with texts, visual performances and interactive games was with a spotlight on in learning customs and traditions of other people as well as own ones.

 

On March 23, 2011 the opening of the Week of Books for Children and the exhibition “Children paint Fairytales“ began with a music concert and a show, performed for children by a writer Stas Vostokov.

 

On March 24, 2011 Azat Minnekaev gave a master class in walls of the Russian State Children’s Library for Children. He is well-known as an illustrator of such publications as the “Tatar Fairytales” (The Mardjani Publishing House, Moscow  2010), “Gates of a Hero” (White Town, 1996), Zachris Topelius  “Sampo the Saami” (Amber Tale, Saint-Petersburg, 2001), Qol Ghali “Tale of Yusuf” (Global Oriental Pbl., London, 2010) and others.

 

On March 26, 2011 within the Week of Books for Children “One Night at a Library” took place. It began with a show by Dinara Sadretdinova, a TV host, and Talgat Hasenov, a multi-instrumentalist and a composer, who narrated Russian, Tatar, Kazakh and Uzbek fairytales, followed by a musical play “How the music instruments argued”. In the late evening the “Sweet tale” master class on modeling from a marchpane began, so that children and their parents could embody the most loved heroes. The “Magical Pillow” master class on working with textiles and furniture was run by a designer Elena Teplitskaya, who explained how to turn a pillow everyone has to a fairy one. The third master class  - “Paper symphony” on quilling - was made especially for horror-lovers, while a wizard and a miracle-worker Shpuntik entertained children as a dj on the dance-floor.

 

On March 27, 2011 At the behest of the Mardjani Foundation the Russian State Children’s Library was visited by children from the Noginsk Boarding School, for whom the Mordovian fairytale “How a Bear became angry” was performed by the Mordovian folklore group. This was made possible under the aegis of the Plenipotentiary Representative Office of the Republic of Mordovia in the Russian Federation and Multicultural Educational Center (Moscow) .The master class for fulling dry thick felt was carried out by Tatiana Kozlova.