Blind people in Nizhniy Novgorod will be able to see the churches

A Round Table on the ‘Development of Handicraft Art in the Nizhniy Novgorod Region’ was held in the ‘Swedish Cultural Centre’ in Nizhniy Novgorod on January 12. The participants discussed the solution of social and psychological problems of the less protected strata of society through the development of folk handicraft and folk creative work.

Taking part in the Round Table were representatives of the Nizhniy Novgorod public organization of the handicapped people ‘Invatur’ that monitors the project ‘Origin of the Image’, in the framework of which a workshop for painting icons for blind people will be set up.

The project will help revive traditions of the relief icons known in Russia since the 15^th century and will also help religious education of blind people. Besides, the project envisages jobs for people with poor eyesight who will paint holy icons.

Press secretary of the ‘Invatur’ Ilya Lebedev told the participants about specific features of the project and noted that ‘Spiritual qualities of people rather than their professionalism are important in our project’.

Artist Roman Baturin, an author of the ‘Origin of the Image’ project reported that a series of the relief panels depicting the churches of Nizhny Novgorod is being planned. He said: ‘We would like people deprived of physical eyesight to be able to see God’s churches of their beloved city’.