I. New Press Center Opens in St. Petersburg

New Press Center has opened in St. Petersburg. This is not only a statement of fact but also its name. The name, in turn, reflects the content. The New Press Center is so named because to date no older, existing press center has specialized in the sphere to which it will devote its activities.

The area of interest of the New Press Center is the activity of nongovernmental organizations: education and schooling; medicine and public health; ecology; human rights; the social sphere; and various aspects of the everyday life of St. Petersburg.

The Center for the Development of Noncommercial Organizations (CDNO) began the creation of the New Press Center. CDNO is supported by the TACIS-Democracy program of the European Community. The founding fathers of the New Press Center are Fedor Gavrilov, the editor of the Bee, the only journal on the life of nongovernmental organizations in Northwest Russia; and Evgenii Machnev, a consultant to CDNO on public relations for social organizations.

The first concrete act of the New Press Center will be a press conference by the international organization Greenpeace and the environmental movement "Green World" [Zelenyi mir, which can also mean Green Peace. Trans.]... At the press conference the results of research conducted at the request of Greenpeace by the Institute of Applied Ecology (Germany) will be made public for the first time. The research reached a sensational conclusion: it contradicts the latest trump card of the proponents of atomic energy, that is, their contentions about the economic advantages of atomic power.

Every journalist [at the press conference] will receive a copy of the Institute's report.

Telephone: (812) 325-8913, 325-8914

II. The Intelligentsia Club of the Central Urals Assists Village Libraries

The Intelligentsia Club of the Central Urals, with the participation of the Cultural Department of the administration of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Oblast Youth Affairs Committee will conduct a charitable activity to assist village libraries, with the aim of replenishing their stock of books. The idea for this activity arose at the recent conference "The Intelligent [member of the intelligentsia] in the Provinces," the participants in which spoke of the lamentable condition of the majority of village libraries and especially of the supply of children's literature. The activity is planned to correspond with All-Russia Library Day and will proceed in stages.

From May 17 to June 1 books and art journals will be collected for the libraries of the Achitsk and Shalinsk regions. The conference participants have already made the first contributions to this stage. Oblast Governor Eduard Rossel' contributed books from his personal library, and the editors of the city paper for senior class students "The Window" decided to send new editions of the paper to all village libraries regularly free of charge. Many of these libraries are not in a position to subscribe to periodicals.

III. Distribution of a New Edition of the Handbook "Sources of Financing"

The coordination and information center of The Socio-Ecological Union and the regional social organization Ecoline are conducting a joint project called "Sources of Financing" the aim of which is to assist noncommercial organizations in the search for funding sources.

The handbook was prepared with financial support from the Eurasia Foundation and contains information on 150 charitable organizations and around 250 programs.

Address: Bogoiavlenskii per., d. 3, str.3 (access from the Metro station Ploshchad' Revoliutsii [Revolution Square]). Additional information is available by telephone/fax: (095) 298-3087 (Alexander Georgievskii, Valentina Gorneva); e mail: [email protected]. URL: http://cci.glasnet.ru/funds.html.

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