Monday, 21 February
The vocal ensemble of the junior classes from Murmansk musical school №1 became the winner of the international children’s and youth choirs festival "Friends of Bulgaria." Traditional creative competition took place in Moscow under the assistance of Bulgarian Embassy. For the first time our ensemble headed by Oksana Sobeschanskaya got the invitation to participate in the festival. Thirteen young singers presented the Kola Peninsula in the capital. Folk songs in the Bulgarian were included into their repertoire. Among the participants of the festival there were 14 choirs from different regions of Russia and CIS countries. The performance of our fellow-townsmen was worth seeing and they gained one of three prizing places.
The only one in the region mountain – skiing school is on the brink of closing. The problem appeared after the opening of private mountain-ski complex on the slope near the school last spring. The owners of the complex demand the fee from the children for the possibility to ski on the slope. Officials are trying to find common ground, but at the moment their attempts are abortive. There is no other school in Murmansk where children free of charge could master mountain skiing. And now they face this problem, they might lose the place where they can train. When the private mountain-ski complex was being built, its owners promised to let children ski on the slope free of charge twice a week. It is impossible to do mountain skiing without ski lift. Even adults can not climb up the hill without ski lift. At the moment the children are allowed to use small ski lift and the slope for two hours a day. And to have full training, they will have to pay about 100 thousand rubbles per month. It is obvious, that either children or their parents can not believe in this situation. Trainers from sport school are tired of appealing to different municipal authorities. But there is no official reaction. And unofficially the answer is that there is the lack of money. If the situation does not change, this kind of sport in Murmansk will die out. According to the senior trainer of sport school Grigory Krechtunov: "I have no idea what to do, if we are turned out. I can say for sure, that half of children will leave the school. They have come to do mountain skiing and if I play football or other games with them, they will chose another kind of sport." What really surprises in this situation, is short – sightedness of the complex owners. All young mountain skiers are in love with their kind of sport. And when they grow, they will come to this slope and will pay for it. That means, that turning them out now, businessmen fell the tree they are sitting on.
