On 23 March 2018, as part of the Week of Books for Children and Teenagers, the exhibition-journey “On the Track of Captain Grant” opened in the General Staff building.
The opening of the exhibition, prepared by the State Hermitage and the Pushkin Central City Children’s Library, was timed to mark the 150th anniversary of the Russian translation of Jules Verne’s book Les Enfants du capitaine Grant (most commonly known in English by the title In Search of the Castaways).
Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, congratulated everyone on the return of the Week of Books for Children: “It’s not just a wonderful festival for children, it’s one of the main cultural events in the life of the city. This is a very Leningrad festival – part of that Leningrad which preserved Petersburg tradition – and I am very pleased at its revival. A wonderful tendency is being observed – people are returning to books. You can’t live without books. Journeys taken through books can be much more interesting than ‘proper’ tourist ones.”
Konstantin Eduardovich Sukhenko, the chairman of the Government of St Petersburg’s Culture Committee, said at the opening ceremony: “It arouses warm feelings that we are reviving the marvellous tradition of the Week of Books for Children in creative collaboration between the State Hermitage, the St Petersburg Culture Committee and one of the best children’s libraries –the Pushkin Library. I would like to wish everyone a fascinating romantic journey, a happy and memorable childhood, and good, pleasant continuity. And may the books by the remarkable classic authors play as big a role in the lives of our children as they once played in our childhood and youth.”
The display that opened in the area of the Forum in the General Staff is based on the route taken by the title characters in the novel and constructed around the theme of a maritime journey and the study of a 19th-century scholar. Visitors travel around the exhibition from one thematic zone to another, performing interactive tasks with the aid of clues in the form of maps, passages from the book, film clips, old photographs and botanical albums.
A separate element of the display offers master classes in raising the sails on the Poltava, a training device simulating a sailing vessel.
The exhibition will work during the school holidays, until 2 April. The display is intended for young visitors from 7 to 16 years old. Entry to the exhibition is not restricted and is open to anyone with an integrated reader’s card for St Petersburg libraries, which can be obtained directly at the exhibition.
