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Freedom in the Public Space: Limits and Opportunities

Summer School in Tarusa and Polenovo, Russia
2.1 Minutes
Freedom in the Public Space: Limits and Opportunities

A summer school on freedom in the public space took place in Tarusa, Russia. The event was organized jointly by the Moscow office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the German-Russian Exchange (Saint-Petersburg). 136 participants took part in an essay contest on the topics of freedom and security, freedom and the media, etc. The authors of the 30 most creative and most extraordinary essays had the great chance to travel to the city of Tarusa and spend seven days there, working on their own projects. Tarusa is located in the Kaluga region, 140km south of Moscow, nearby the Polenevo county estate and museum, and is historically connected with the names of Marina Tsvetayeva, Konstantin Paustovsky, Nikolay Zabolotsky and many other poets, writers, artists and dissidents. 

The aim of the project was to discuss questions related to the topic of freedom, namely whether it is possible to limit freedom to ensure safety, what should be the limits of freedom of speech, whether art should be subject to censorship. 

Gain some impressions from the creative summer school here:

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On the first day of school the participants met the founder of the anti-café Ziferblat, Ivan Mitin, the Director of Polenovo Museum Natalya Polenova, as well as Alexander Goncharov, founder of the “Farm for Life” project in Tulskaya region. The guests and summer school participants discussed the role of individual in creating free space. The next three days the participants, divided into groups, conducted field research together with moderators and worked on their projects relevant to the territory they studied, as well as cities they come from.

During the evenings participants welcomed guests, with whom informally discussed diverse topics. Among the guests were the President of the “Liberal Heritage” foundation, Alexey Kara-Murza, philosopher Olga Zhukova, culture expert and curator Anatoliy Golubovsky, architect Ekaterina Rovnova, former director and initiator of the liberal clubs programme Falk Bomsdorf and many others.

Stay tuned for more videos. 

For more detailed information for the event, please visit the Facebook Page and website of FNF's Moscow Office.