The Forum hosted the presentation of the first interactive comic devoted to Russia’s Northwest, The Silver Necklace. The book tells the story of a quest for a mysterious artifact named after the tourist route across the Northwestern regions of the country. The plot revolves around a family in which a father and son set off on a journey through all 11 regions of the Silver Necklace of Russia. Their path becomes a metaphor for continuity between generations and the preservation of historical memory, from Ancient Rus to the present day.
The presentation featured Lyubov Sovershaeva, Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Northwestern Federal District, and Kirill Smirnov, Director General of the Information and Publishing Center of the Government of St. Petersburg and Editor in Chief of Petersburgsky Dnevnik.
“Dear friends, I have just come from a session on preserving cultural heritage through the Silver Necklace of Russia project and presented this unique book created by the Petersburgsky Dnevnik team. The point is that the Silver Necklace is an umbrella for many projects, and we say it is an endless travel construction set. The team used comics to show the main characters traveling along the Silver Necklace routes in search of artifacts. This book is unique in that it is engaging for children, young people, and adults alike. I am sure that once you look through it, you will want to explore the Northwest with your own eyes, build your own itinerary, and see everything for yourself, all those artifacts that our regions hold. And what journalists are doing here is both a guidebook written by a journalist and this book, which is exactly the kind of thing our tourists want to take on the road,” Lyubov Sovershaeva said in her welcome address.
Speaking about the history of the comic’s creation, Kirill Smirnov noted: “We really started in 2021, as Lyubov Pavlovna has already mentioned, when we created the first guidebook. Here it is, right next to me, in digital form. It was created following a media expedition taken by a crew from our Petersburgsky Dnevnik and the Leningrad Region TV channel LenTV24. Two media outlets teamed up to travel through all 11 regions and showcase the sights that exist there and perhaps some unexpected things that not everyone fully knows about. It was on the basis of this media expedition that the book was born, along with 11 films that are still available all over the internet, on social networks, and of course in the regions. There is real demand for this and it is popular. And as a result of that trip we realized we should not stop there. We are seeing a kind of renaissance of comics as a cultural form, and that is how the idea of the comic came about.”
The Editor in Chief of Petersburgsky Dnevnik explained that the book consists of 11 episodes that were published in the newspaper from April to December 2024 and assembled into a single graphic novel in the summer of 2025.
“The book has already been released in a fairly large print run, one thousand copies. For a first print run of a comic, that is a solid number. Our task now is to ensure that the book is distributed across the regions, that it does not stop at St. Petersburg alone. It is extremely important to us that this point be taken on board by our colleagues in the 11 Northwestern regions,” Kirill Smirnov emphasized as he concluded the book presentation.