10.01.12 - The Russian international news agency RIA Novosti is rounding off its 70th anniversary year with an exhibition of publications dedicated to the agency's history. The exhibition, which opened on Tuesday in the agency's International Multimedia Press Center, contains more than 50 exhibits published between 1941 and 2011. These include not only analytical, artistic, reference, scientific and journalistic publications from the Russian State Library (RSL), but also newspapers and magazines which the agency published over the years in a variety of countries.

"They say that the ancestral tree means a great deal both for a people and for a family. In this sense RIA Novosti has an impeccable pedigree. The agency and the people who work in it have been witnesses to, participants in and chroniclers of the most important events that have occurred in our life and that of the country over the past 70 years," Maxim Filimonov, RIA Novosti deputy editor-in-chief, said at the exhibition opening.

He said that all those who use their talents to create news pieces and photographs, which over time become works of art, are the agency’s main assets.
More than 50 former RIA Novosti employees have visited the exhibition. Flicking through the now rare magazines and newspapers, they reminisced about how they chose the topics for a particular issue and talked about how the agency has changed over time.

RSL President Viktor Fedorov noted that the library's involvement in the exhibition, which illuminates one page of our country’s history, was a matter of great importance and responsibility.

"The page in question is multi-faceted, since the topics which Sovinformburo, Novosti Press Agency (APN) and now RIA Novosti have covered are in essence our country’s history. At the same time, the organisation (the news agency) is itself part of that history," he said.

Fedorov noted that RSL and RIA Novosti enjoy a stimulating relationship.
"We are like the two poles of a magnet. On the one hand we have our differences; on the other – we can't live without each other. For you, speed is important – what matters is conveying news as quickly, precisely, interestingly and objectively as possible. Whereas we, as librarians, work at a more leisurely pace, we think in terms of eternity. But it is precisely these frozen moments in time that make up our history, the history that we preserve," he explained.

The exhibition is divided into several historical phases:  Sovinformburo, APN and RIA Novosti.
The Sovinformburo (SIB) period is represented by the first collection of reports in eight volumes entitled "Reports by the Soviet Information Bureau." SIB created the reports using materials from leading front-line commanders, informing the population of the country and the world at large about events on the front line and on the home front. During the war they produced over 2,000 front-line reports.

The next stage is that of the Novosti Press Agency (APN), 1961-1990. APN's chief task was to inform foreign readers about life in the USSR. Each year APN published more than 200 books and brochures with a total circulation of around 20 million copies. APN produced 60 illustrated newspapers and magazines in 45 languages with a circulation of 4.3 million copies per issue in 110 countries. Magazines about the Soviet Union published in different languages feature prominently in the exhibition, although most of the publications on display are in English. In particular there is a folder of the famous newspaper Soviet Weekly for 1969, which came out in London, and yellowed copies of Soviet War News Weekly for 1942-1943. All 1976 editions of the legendary illustrated monthly magazine Soviet Life, which was published in Washington, are on display. This magazine was published under an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Under this same agreement, the magazine America was published in the Soviet Union. There are several 1974 editions of the magazine about Indian-Soviet friendship, Soviet Land, which was published in English in India.

The exhibition also features surviving publications in a variety of languages. Fakta om Sovjetunionen from 1963 in Danish which was published in Copenhagen;  the magazine Kraj Rad (The Land of the Soviets) in Polish (1967, published in Warsaw); Enfoque international in Spanish (1967, published in Colombia, distributed in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela); Konniti no sorempo/The Soviet Union Today, in Japanese (published in Tokyo, 1967); Земльа совjета/The Land of the Soviets, a magazine produced both in Cyrillic and Latin scripts in Yugoslavia (published in Belgrade, 1974); a magazine in Khmer (published in Cambodia, 1972); Tydenik Aktualit, a newspaper in Czech about the Soviet way of life (1974); URSS – a monthly magazine published by APN in Spanish in Cuba (1972); Октябрийн Туяа/The Light of October, a monthly magazine published by APN in Mongolian in Ulan Bator (Mongolia), the editions were produced by APN's Buryat office (1974); Etudes Sovietiques, a monthly magazine in French, published in Paris, France (1980).

One of the items on display is the book "A Day in the World" about events on October 23, 1986. This is the third attempt to translate Alexei Gorky's idea of capturing the goings on all over our planet during one rotation of the Earth's axis, to show "the artistic creation of history during one randomly chosen day with all the crazy, fantastic diversity of its existence."

The exhibition’s organizers highlighted the history and architecture of the RIA Novosti building on Zubovsky Bulvar, which housed the main press center for the 1980 Olympics over 30 years ago. The modern history of the news agency (RIA Novosti, from 1991) is represented in the exhibition by a large quantity of materials published in various periodicals.

Russian News & Information Agency RIA Novosti (www.en.ria.ru)
RIA Novosti is a leading Russian media company with a rich 70-year history. Today, the RIA Novosti media holding includes the eponymous multimedia Russian Information Agency, the Russian Agency of Legal and Judicial Information, the R-Sport news agency, the Moscow News Publishing House, which publishes newspapers in Russian and English, a press center, as well as more than 70 Internet resources in 14 languages. RIA Novosti websites are visited by 17 million unique users per month.

The core of the RIA Novosti holding is the news agency, a revered and widely quoted source of timely and accurate news. The agency publishes social, political, economic, scientific and sports news 24/7 in 14 languages and has an extensive network of correspondents in 68 Russian cities and 40 countries. The RIA Novosti news agency also sponsors a unique educational platform created not only for its own employees but for the entire journalism community.

RIA Novosti also develops news applications for a variety of modern computer platforms. The agency provides unique news content on infoscreens, mobile TV, smartphones and tablet devices (iPhone, iPad, Android, Symbian). The agency actively employs the main social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, Vkontakte) to help its audience stay on top of important events and to promote interaction with the agency's editorial departments.

The RIA Novosti Press Center has an extensive network of multimedia press centers in Russia and abroad. RIA Novosti is recognized for its video and news conferences, briefings, roundtables and interactive online conferences.

RIA Novosti is striving to keep up with the time and meet the needs of a diverse audience. The agency has won prestigious media contests and is a winner of numerous Russian and international media awards and prizes.