The Life Beyond Tourism Center dedicated to the name of the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation was opened in Moscow.
It is the first foreign location of the courses
“Life Beyond Tourism, heritage for dialogue, journey for dialogue”
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On April 18, 2018, at the State Library of Foreign Literature “M. Rudomino “in Moscow was inaugurated the first Life Beyond Tourism center abroad; the ceremony was attended by the President of the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation, Paolo Del Bianco, the General Director of the Library, Vadim Duda, as well as the First Councilor of the Italian Embassy in Moscow, Walter Ferrara, the Director of the Italian Institute of Culture, Olga Strada, the ENIT delegate, Irina Petrenko, who greeted the many participants at the ceremony, all partners of the Foundation, from universities and institutions not only in Moscow but also from other Russian cities such as Kemerovo, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg, Togliatti, Yaroslavl, St. Petersburg and Astana.
After the welcome by the Director of the Library, Vadim Duda, in his speech, President Del Bianco expressed the gratitude of the Foundation for the event that was specially conceived and organized on April 18, ICOMOS International Day of the monument and of the sites. “This is how we all celebrate this important date, precisely with this significant ceremony for the launch of Life Beyond Tourism: heritage for dialogue, journey for dialogue“.
The State Library of Foreign Literature “M. Rudomino “is the place where, in Moscow, the research Life Beyond Tourism will be taught to young Russians , carried out by the Foundation with the contribution of international experts, defined and implemented in the Florentine context. As President Del Bianco underlined, “it is as if in Florence the Foundation had built a building with bricks brought by international experts from their countries. The building was built in the Florentine context, with a logic influenced by the place, by its society and culture, economy, etc .; this building is called ‘Oltre il Turismo‘, and it means the exceptional opportunities (Life) given by Heritage to favor Dialogue among Cultures; with this dialogue we contribute to start a path on that road that has ‘Peace’ as ‘destination’, a cultural and commercial revolution, as we defined it at the 6th Forum in St. Petersburg.
If there are over a billion and four hundred million people traveling each year, we can imagine towhat extent they represent an opportunity: about 10 billion days to dedicate to dialogue among cultures; it is an exceptional potential only with the exchange of visiting cards among travelers, resulting in an exercise in dialogue among people and growth in peaceful coexistence.
‘Others’ will always be’ foreign ‘,’ ‘strangers’,’ different ‘if we do not use this opportunity to exchange our references and our mail addresses, to give ourselves to others, to open ourselves to others, to give our time and to invest our money to get to know people just like us, better if it can be done in their cultural contexts.
Those who are interested in knowing and applying this ethics, this cultural and commercial revolution in the travel chain, can enter the Movement.
In Florence they will learn how to dismantle this building and then bring with them the bricks and the logic with which the building was built in the Florentine context.
In their territory, with the same bricks and the same principles oriented to dialogue, they will build their building adapting it with form, dimension and function to its cultural, social and environmental context.
Every year Life Beyond Tourism will increase the local experiences that will be transmitted to the Foundation and every year we will have an update of the theory and teaching with the issue of annual certification.
The DTC-LBT quality certification will be for the user an annual certificate that demonstrates the seriousness with which the certified structures of the travel chain (companies, institutions, professionals, etc.) intend to follow this mission as a service offered to its customers, thus contributing to the growth of the community in peaceful coexistence.
This is our heritage which is called Life Beyond Tourism and attached here is our Manifesto for his Movement “.
Today this Movement is ready to leave Moscow to reach the whole Russian Federation, thanks to the State Library of Foreign Literature, through the extensive and widespread network of libraries, especially the regional and local ones, that represent the real repositories of the many Russian cultural identities and that can become authentic Life-Beyond Tourism-style Learning Communities.
The registration on the portal will demonstrate the belonging to the Movement and will give the opportunity to keep in touch and download the publications.
This is how the Library and the Foundation offer their contribution to maintaining the relations between our countries, because civil society in Russia and in Italy strongly asks to keep our contacts fluid.
The President Del Bianco then thanked the institutions and representatives of our country in Russia (Embassy, Italian Cultural Institute and ENIT), which gives even more value to the almost thirty years of commitment of the Foundation (1991) to increase the international collaboration relations; among these for us Russia has a great importance for the development of ethics “Life Beyond Tourism – The Heritage for Dialogue”, for the growth of the international community in peaceful coexistence.
After the greeting message of President Del Bianco, the First Councilor of the Italian Embassy in Moscow intervened, welcoming the initiative that is part of a context of collaboration and friendship that has always marked the relations between Italy and Russia; he was followed by Maria Sergienko, Chief Specialist of the Department for International Collaboration of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation; finally, the Rector of the Kemerovo State University of Culture, Alexander Shunkov, and the representative of the Mayor of Togliatti, Tatiana Burobina, took the floor, both appreciating the collaboration of the respective organizations with the Foundation and the Life Beyond Tourism Initiative and announcing future initiatives in their region.
After the opening ceremony of the Life Beyond Tourism Center, the signing of the Collaboration Memorandum between the Foundation and the City of Togliatti (Russia) was held, for the dissemination of the Life Beyond Tourism Movement in the region; on behalf of the mayor, signed the agreement with the Chairman Paolo Del Bianco, the Director of the Department of International Relations of the City of Togliatti, Natalia Khrist. Also in their programs, it will be the formation of special personnel to the theory and practice Life Beyond Tourism for the subsequent application in their region.
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