Hi, I'm Anastasiya Knyazeva and I work in the local history museum of the town of
Polyarniy. We called this project Yekaterininskiy Art Boat. Yekaterininskiy is because the
town is located near the Yekaterininskaya Harbour, and the Art Boat we took from the name of the boats moored at the Yekaterininskiy Marine Terminal. These boats actually inspired us to start this project at our museum, because our town is a navy town, a military navy one. Head of our museum Valentina Nikolayevna and I were looking for an opportunity to realize it, and then the Potanin Fund announced a competition named Personal Philanthropy and Altruism Practice. Having discussed the details with Mariya, we applied for the competition and it so happened that I won. I'm really happy about it, and so are the teenagers who participated in the project. Last Saturday we had our first meeting, and more young people came than it had been planned. After it was reported on TV more teenagers and parents kept calling and asking if they could take part, but I had to close the registration because the group was too big.

Yes, they seem to be genuinely interested in the project. I was worried about that and at the first lecture I wanted to tune them in and understand what we were going to do next, not start making plans but understand what they were keen on. We had a very lively conversation, which was a pleasant surprise. The guys are really frank and I'm glad this topic appeals to them, so now we'll look for some more things to adapt it to teenagers.

Is this your first experience working with teenagers?

No, I've been a teacher for about 10 years.

Does it mean anything special for you that your local project has spread out across the
region?

Yes, I really like it, we have had such examples before when people looked at the project and wanted to participate, and it's valuable because it means the project has worked out.
When a project grows and takes different forms, it's what I value most. It's true.

When are we going to see the results?

Well, according to the plan we were going to present this boat on Museum Night, let's hope it will take place offline after all, because everybody's a bit fed up with online. We
understood that when so many young people came and it was clear they missed
communication apart from school. They want to get together and discuss things. And besides making the boat itself the guys are going to get acquainted with the history of street art because even at the first lecture it was clear that they didn't know even the most famous names, although they were keen on the subject.

They had only seen popular things like Obey or Banksy but they hadn't realized it was the
same thing. But I'm sure in the future we will teach them all that, they must have already
picked up some images from their surroundings.

There are projects where the result is not as important as the process itself. Do you think this project is like that?

Yes, I think so, the process is important. We have made up a group of teenagers, and they
have already started writing to me via the social networks about their opinions and ideas and the studies they are working on, and it makes me glad, it means they got hooked, they got excited and started researching. I sent them the first video through the souvenir shop, I couldn't help it, and I've got the first comments about what they liked or disliked, and it's so nice to get their feedback.