Board of Trustees Meeting 2016

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Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the RGS 2016. Photo: Nikolay Razuvaev
Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the RGS 2016. Photo: Nikolay Razuvaev

A meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society was held at the Headquarters of the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg on April 29, 2016.

Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society V.V. Putin, President of the Russian Geographical Society S.K. Shoigu, Head of the Presidential Administration S.B. Ivanov, members of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society and guests of honor took part in the meeting.

The Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society was established in 2010. It revived the long-standing traditions of patronage of arts and established grants of the Society, within the framework of which many significant research, environmental and expeditionary projects are carried out. The Council consists of well-known public figures and business representatives. At the meeting of the Board of Trustees, the results of the work done by the Russian Geographical Society over the past year were summarized, plans for the future were discussed, awards and grants were presented.

 “We have gathered again at the historical Headquarters of the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg, where most of the projects of our organization have been born for more than a century”, said the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Society. “New initiatives will be presented today. They will come true largely thanks to you, members of the Board of Trustees, and everyone who helps the work of the Russian Geographical Society with genuine interest”.

Full text of the speech of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society

At the meeting of the Council in St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin presented the Big Gold Medal of the Russian Geographical Society for scientific works to the First Vice-President of the Society, President of the Department of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University, academician Nikolai Sergeyevich Kasimov.

This year the winner of the Small Gold Medal of the Russian Geographical Society was Oleg Dmitrievich Osipov, Deputy Head of the Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

A Big Silver Medal of the Russian Geographical Society for outstanding work on the organization of expeditions was awarded to Ekaterina Yuryevna Khutorskaya, a member of the Ethnographic Commission of the Society.

Honorary diplomas of the Russian Geographical Society were presented to volunteers of the Society’s largest archaeological and geographical expedition “Kyzyl-Kuragino”, a social project “Accessible Planet. Family Accessible Tourism in Russia” of Konstantin Baykov and Oleg Baykov supported by the Russian Geographical Society grant and geography teacher L. N. Skuratova from the city of Zhukovsky, who has been organized school geographic expeditions for 15 years.

“For us, the 2015 year was generally marked by the 170th anniversary of the Russian Geographical Society”, emphasized the President of the Society Sergey Shoigu, “and with the help of this date we would like to tell people more about the history of our organization and its present day. We can do it thanks to numerous exhibitions, books, films and, of course, the festival, which was again held during the autumn holidays and attracted over 80,000 visitors. Commemorative geographic coins, stamps were issued, and a special train of the Russian Geographical Society runs in the Moscow metro."

Full text of the speech of the President of the Russian Geographical Society

In addition, the heads of the Russian Geographical Society spoke about the plans of the Society for 2016. Among them are a joint expedition with the Ministry of Defense to the island of Matua - the most poorly studied island of the Kuril ridge; creation of an electronic database of caves in Russia and neighboring countries; the creation of the "The Most Beautiful Country" park of the Russian Geographical Society in the Patriot Park (Moscow Region). Antarctic research of the Russian Geographical Society is continuing: Russian scientists will study the dynamics of the mass of Antarctic ice in 2016. Finally, new media portals of the Russian Geographical Society have already opened, making publicly accessible the unique information accumulated by the Society's specialists since 1845.

Concluding the meeting, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society Vladimir Putin noted: "The revival of the Russian Geographical Society is continuing - it is developing very successfully, at a good pace, and demonstrates a very good result."