The closing session of the St Petersburg International United Cultures Forum took place under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and Chair of the forum’s Organizing Committee T. A. Golikova.
The preliminary results of the XI St Petersburg International Forum of United Cultures were summed up by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and Chair of the forum’s Organizing Committee Tatiana Golikova, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Olga Lyubimova, General Director of the State Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Konstantin Mogilevsky, Artistic Director of the State Theatre of Nations Evgeny Mironov, General Director of the Great Moscow State Circus on Vernadsky Avenue Edgard Zapashny, Director of the Russian Museum of Ethnography Yulia Kupina, Executive Director of the Federal Fund for Social and Economic Support of Domestic Cinematography Fedor Sosnov, General Director of the St Petersburg State Academic Capella Olga Khomova, General Director of the Presidential Fund for Cultual Initiatives Roman Karmanov, and Rector of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts GITIS Grigory Zaslavsky.
Foreign guests offered words of greeting, including Brazilian playwright Dante Passarelli, Director of the Center for Innovation at Zhejiang University Christopher Chen, and South Africa’s Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie.
The closing session was moderated by Andrey Kondrashov, Director General of TASS, the Russian News Agency.
Tatiana Golikova spoke about the interim results and the number of participating countries.
“As part of our forum, cultural figures and public officials from 69 countries took part in discussions across all the main areas of the arts: museums, theatre, cinema, music, and media. [...] This year we introduced a new discussion track, Art Education,” said Tatiana Golikova.
Olga Lyubimova shared the results of talks with international partners and stressed the importance of holding the Islamic World Cultural Capital program in Kazan.
As a rule, the Forum of United Cultures becomes a platform for implementing the most important bilateral and multilateral initiatives. [...] We are greatly honored by the decision to hold the Islamic World Cultural Capital program in Kazan in 2026," said Olga Lyubimova.
This year, during the negotiations, about 30 interdepartmental agreements were signed with foreign countries, as Olga Lyubimova noted in her speech.
Fyodor Sosnov spoke about the opening of the first cinema in the framework of cooperation between the CIS countries. At the X International Forum of United Cultures, an agreement was reached, and this year measures were taken to implement it.
Together with our partners, we put forward the idea of creating a cinema network of the Commonwealth countries, where films produced jointly or separately by our states would be shown. At this forum we summed up the results and launched the implementation of this program. The first auditoriums in the network will open before the end of the current year," said Fedor Sosnov.
During the session, Roman Karmanov again stressed the importance of labeling content created with artificial intelligence.
If this text was not written by me, which program did I use: ours or a foreign one? And if I took artificial intelligence as a coauthor, am I aware of whether it is manipulating me now or not? In my view, the way out of this atmosphere of universal suspicion is voluntary or mandatory labeling to indicate the presence of artificial intelligence in a creative product," said Roman Karmanov.
Andrey Kondrashov, speaking as Director General of the Russian News Agency TASS, the general information partner of the Forum of United Cultures and the session’s curator, highlighted the preparations carried out for the forum.
Since January, TASS has released 46 wire reports and published 96 materials on the site, including flagship pieces. Of course, there was an interview with the Deputy Prime Minister, Chair of the forum’s Organizing Committee Tatiana Alexeyevna Golikova, Minister of Culture Olga Borisovna Lyubimova and others. <...> About an hour ago, 110 messages had already appeared in the news feeds, 82 publications were on the website. The official TASS accounts on social networks and Telegram feature more than 30 posts. The TASS media park has published 623 photos,” said Andrey Kondrashov.
The session also touched on the multimedia exhibition Windows of TASS, an exhibition of historical posters created during the war years.
Gayton McKenzie spoke in his remarks about the brotherhood of the peoples of Africa and Russia, emphasized the importance of Russian culture, and concluded that it cannot be eradicated.
In closing, Tatiana Golikova mentioned cultural integration and the importance of accepting social differences.
"Regardless of borders, regardless of the difference of cultures, traditions and religions, we are united in understanding the cultural future. And this is probably the main conclusion of our forum," concluded Tatiana Golikova.