St. Pete Culture Works On the Art of Business.

(From The Moscow Times)

ST. PETERSBURG -- Not so long ago, the suggestion that Russian museums should sell coffee mugs bearing paintings from their collections would have been treated by many curators as something just short of blasphemy.

But the financial difficulties of the past decade have now convinced even the most conservative museum director that a degree of business sense is vital to the maintenance of any cultural institution. The lingering question: Where to find the expertise and advice needed to generate funds to revitalize their institutions?

Enter the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum, or IBLF.

"Russia's culture and arts world were the subject of intense international interest. They were already competitive in attracting global attention," said Susan Causey, the IBLF program manager for Russia. "But we knew that the new economic philosophies meant that they were inevitably threatened by cuts in state funding."

The importance of cultural sites and tourism to St. Petersburg's economy was recognized early in the 1990s by then-St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who approached the IBLF looking for cooperation with a nongovernmental organization that he himself had founded, the St. Petersburg Renaissance Foundation.

Although the idea was not directly in line with the programs the IBLF had set up in other countries, Prince Charles supported the proposal enthusiastically, becoming personally involved in a number of projects and visiting the city last month to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his forum's work here.