CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/Results of Wiki Loves Monuments Russia 2024
During the Christmas and New Year holidays, the results of the Russian part of the "Wiki Loves Monuments 2024" photo contest were summed up. Since Russia has not participated in the international stage of the WLM for the second year, the jury members were not limited by the general deadline of the competition (December 1), and this allowed them to choose the winners as thoughtfully as possible. A lot of work was done, because almost 25,000 images were uploaded to the Russian contest, and the long list consisted of about one and a half thousand photos.
The photo that was included in the top ten winners of the contest. Wind turbine of the polar hydrometeorological station in Tikhaya Bay, Franz Josef Land, Arkhangelsk region. Author — Nixette
Statistics from the Russian part of WLM show that participants are still deeply interested in this competition, and despite all the difficulties (and these are not only the risks associated with participating in the international stage of the competition, but also, for example, a ban on the use of at least some normal quadrocopters in Russia, which makes it impossible to photograph hard-to-reach landmarks), the pictures are still uploaded with great enthusiasm. And there is something to photograph: at the moment, the lists of cultural heritage monuments in Russia number almost 225 thousand items! Of course, a significant part of the uploaded content consists of pictures of popular attractions in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Suzdal, Rostov Veliky, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and other "tourist" locations, however, contest participants are sometimes not lazy to reach the most inaccessible corners of the country. So, among the winners there is a photo of wooden buildings located on one of the islands of Franz Josef Land, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.
Yes, there are a huge number of architectural and historical monuments in Russia, but many of them are in extremely neglected condition, and some of them are real ruins. Therefore, the organizers of the Russian part of the competition appoint a special nomination "Cultural Heritage under threat" year after year, for which photographs of crumbling buildings and structures are selected from among all downloads. There are usually a lot of such photos, and the scale of the disaster can be estimated even by the long list of this special nomination: churches and manor houses, industrial and residential buildings — everything looks equally sad, if not creepy. This special nomination is one of the ways to draw attention to the appalling state of cultural heritage in all Russian regions, and if not to stop the destruction, at least to capture for history those objects that are still somehow exist.
There is another traditional special nomination on the Russian WLM. For the fifth year in a row, it has been appointed by the North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User Group. It is necessary to say that the members of this user group are also actively participating in this competition: for example, in 2024 they uploaded 5,488 images to the Russian part of WLM, which is more than 20% of all downloads (and this despite the fact that 10 people from the user group participated in WLM, and the total number of participants in the contest — 467). But, of course, they lack the strength and opportunity to visit and photograph all the locations in the regions they are interested in, so the special nomination they assign allow them to fill in many gaps. The initiative part of the user group selects the winners in this special nomination (of course, not including their own works) and awards them with their own prize. In 2024, the participants of the photo contest were invited to pay attention to the architectural details of buildings and structures in the Northwest Russia. This is an important topic, because it is the details that make each building unique and unrepeatable, and add value to it; often, it is the original architectural details that turn a building or structure into cultural heritage monument. In addition, it is not so easy to photograph an architectural detail correctly (which is why, by the way, user group members periodically give educational lectures on photography, where one of the courses is devoted to shooting architecture), and each high-quality detail is a valuable asset for Wiki projects. However, a lot of good photos were uploaded to this special nomination, so so the NW jury had to solve a difficult task by choosing the winner. As a result, the photo of the column's capital in the half-abandoned Zhernovka estate, located on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, received the most votes — an exemplary picture that equally successfully shows both the architectural detail and the beauty of the manor's decor, and its far from ideal condition.
The organizers of the Russian part of WLM have already started making plans for the coming year. Let's hope that they will be able to carry out all their plans — or even a little more.