Russian Post has released a special stamp to mark the Year of Literature 2015. The item depicts the profiles of such famous Russian writers as Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Anna Akhmatova. The issue was unveiled and put into circulation during the special ceremony on the 25th of June.
The Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum near St. Petersburg has played host to the official opening ceremony for the All-Russia Year of Literature. 2015 will see more than 1500 events to celebrate Russian writers and poets. The Lyceum was a fitting place to begin this literary extravaganza, as it was where celebrated Russian writer Alexander Pushkin studied.
One of the Year’s very first events will be the 200th anniversary of the meeting between Pushkin and the famous 18th-century poet Davriil Derzhavin, who was the first to notice the young boy’s great talent. The venerable old poet and his young would-be apprentice met in the Lyceum’s great hall during Pushkin’s translation exam in 1815. This meeting is recognized as a symbol of the start of the Golden Age of Russian literature.
“If Russian literature was a necklace, it would be decked with numerous pearls, but the diamond at its center is the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum”, said Mikhail Seslavinsky, the head of the Federal Agency for Publishing and Mass Communication (Rospechat).
Speaking last year about the 2015 Year of Literature, Seslavinsky said: “It is no secret that interest in books is plummeting, particularly among the youth. Some people in our country admit that they don’t ever read books”. Rospechat has a long list of events that will help to reverse this trend.
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