Shakespeare on the Moscow Train

The United Kingdom and Russia are celebrating The Year of Language and Literature

August 11th, 2016

Ingrida Haringová, CD News

The year 2016 marks the UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature which celebrates rich literary traditions of the UK and Russia together with their widely spoken languages. Part of the celebration is a special Shakespeare Moscow metro carriages.

This year's celebrations are organized by the British Council and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with VisitBritain and UK Trade and Investment.

To mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death the British Council, together with the Moscow Metro, launched a special “Shakespeare train” and the “Poetry on the Metro” project.

The train explores the development of expressing emotions since Shakespeare's times - “four hundred years ago we might have written poems and sung songs or confided secrets in letters and diaries, today we express ourselves through private messaging and public posting, with increasing concision through photos and emoji”.

The exterior of the carriages is decorated with photos of Muscovites magically transported to the Shakespeare's times. Each portrait is accompanied by emoji for love, hate, power, conflict and so on. Inside, people can find same emojis illustrating Shakespeare´s quotations.

At the end of each carriage there are “selfie points”, and throughout the train links can be found to a free mini-site accessible via the Metro wifi, where passengers can learn more about the playwrights, download an Emoji Shakespeare app and enter competitions with prizes including a trip to Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Among other initiatives, the celebrations also include open online courses based on Shakespeare's works, TheatreHD programs in more than 40 Russian cities, joint exhibitions at the State Tretyakov Gallery Moscow and the National Portrait Gallery in London, Shakespeare Olympiad for 150,000 schoolchildren across Russia and the 17th New British Film Festival.

References:

• http://www.britishcouncil.ru/en/event/shakespeare-passions-train-in-moscow-metro
• http://www.britishcouncil.ru/en/programmes/arts/uk-russia-year-of-language-and-literature-2016

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