Arranged by the Leiden-based Resource Center of Civil Initiatives, the opening celebrations attracted the Dutch and Russian immigrants alike.
"I am glad to see the Dutch knowing Pushkin and cherishing his memory," Yulia Pushkina said to Novosti. The poet's great-great-granddaughter and Pushkin's Heirs and Heritage foundation president, she had come from Moscow to attend the galas. She and Olga Kovalchuk, Moscow's Pushkin Library manager, appeared in Leiden as guests of honor.
"Regimes come and go and people change as time passes-but Pushkin remains his memorable self. He is alive, and will live on. The present celebrations in the Netherlands come as a proof of that," said Yulia.
The Leiden grammar school offered its foyer for photograph shows, "Pushkin Yesterday and Today", and "Tatiana Today", both arranged by undergraduates of The Hague's Royal Art Academy, and an exposition of children's art under the motto, "I Am Little Pushkin". It offered drawings by Leiden, Rotterdam and Amersfoort primary school pupils. Also on display were Pushkin's books in the Russian original, and translated into Dutch, English and German.
The drawings and photographs will travel on to appear on show in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Amersfoort.
Svetlana Fatina, actress of the Mikhailovskoye Drama Studio in Moscow, recited The Little House in Kolomna, Pushkin's delightful long comic poem. Girl students of the Leiden grammar school and the Royal Art Academy recited Tatiana's letter from the novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, in Russia, Dutch and English. Leiden's Russian language school students offered a stage version of scenes from The Tale of Tsar Saltan.
Much else of Pushkin'sverse was recited at the Leiden gala. Songs to his lyrics were sung. There was much dancing, too. The whole gathering was treated to Russian dishes and drinks.
A charitable collection was made at the gala for survivors of a March 16 blast in Arkhangelsk. A high-rise residential house in that provincial center in European Russia's north was reduced to debris in the tragedy to take a heavy toll of lives, injure a great many, and rob all residents of their entire possessions.
The Netherlands will host a forum of Russian and Dutch Pushkin scholars within the month. The conferees will discuss the arrangement of Russian literature teaching in Dutch secondary schools, with Pushkin prominent on the curricula.
A children's art contest mottoed, "Pushkin and His Tales: The World as I See It", will be held from September 2004 into January 2005.
A poetry recital contest will gather college and secondary school students next March with poems by Pushkin and of their own.
Crowning the Pushkin Year in the Netherlands will be a children's poetry festival of May 2005.
