The Russian side will bear the costs of creating a digital copy of the Polotsk Gospel.

February 10, Minsk / Zhanna Kotlyarova - BELTA /. The costs of creating a digital copy of the Polotsk Gospel will be borne by the Russian side. As the Minister of Culture of Belarus Pavel Latushko informed journalists today, this information was received a few days ago from the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Alexander Avdeev, BELTA correspondent reports. "This is a very important project, we plan to update this rarity of our country," said Pavel Latushko. It is planned that specialists from the Russian National Library will be engaged in the digitization of the Polotsk Gospel, which is believed to have been rewritten in the 12th century by Euphrosyne of Polotsk, in February. This will be a stage in the preparation of a facsimile edition of the Polotsk Gospel, which is planned to be released for the 1150th anniversary of the founding of Polotsk in 2012. In addition, the Russian side will bear the costs of digitizing part of the Radziwill archives, which are located in St. Petersburg. The return of historical and cultural values to the country is impossible, but there is an option to return them in virtual form. At the end of February, a meeting of a special government commission on the return of historical and cultural values is planned, where the Ministry of Culture intends to present its vision of which projects should be pursued in the near future. Pavel Latushko did not rule out that cities with the status of a museum-city might appear in Belarus. But initially, it is necessary to comprehensively analyze and study what a particular city means for history, for the present, and what needs to be done in the future to correspond to the status. -0-