SYRIA - THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATIONS

Our Syrian archive is an electronic collection of film/photographic and textual documents that reflect a modern view of the history of Syria, the cradle of ancient civilizations.
Our purpose is to show that some common philosophical and moral principles of Christianity and Islam, embedded in the Bible and the Quran, have been in force on the territory of this country for several centuries and have ensured, in historical terms, a lasting tolerance and mutual understanding between those who practice them. Violation of these principles in the present time, has led to an acute exacerbation of confessional intolerance and religious extremism.
The archive is based on original recordings we conducted in Syria, intermittently, between 1998 and 2014. At that time this country was still little known to Western audiences on the cultural and historical side (in media terms) until the well-known dramatic events of the civil war, which led to the fatal destruction of the culture and history. During those years we have been capturing and thereby preserving the image of some unique monuments of the beginning of the “our apoch”: the first monasteries, churches, rebuilt from ancient temples, frescoes of historical value, executed in a completely unusual manner of artistic writing.
The archive also contains unique event footages and movies shot before war, including exclusive video of the national museums in Damascus and Aleppo and the Palmyra National Museum of Antiquity, as well as interviews and conversations with historians, scholars, archaeologists, and religious figures, including Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch and All the East and Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun.
This audio-video material is intended for the widest audience and, in our opinion, will allow to get acquainted with the unique monuments of material and spiritual culture of the Middle East.
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS:
Sergey Vologdin – Film director, organizer and participant of film expeditions to Syria in 2007, 2008, 2013 and 2014, a film expedition in 2010;
Sergey Medvedko – orientalist journalist who worked as a reporter for TASS and Literaturnaya Gazeta in Egypt, Sudan and Syria in 1978-1997, candidate of Historical Sciences, author and cameraman of the film “Storm in the Desert” (1991);
Vasily Ivanyuk – cameraman;
Vladimir Mahov – Candidate of Medical Sciences;
Dmitry Osipov – journalist, orientalist, writer, worked as a reporter RIA-APN in Algeria, Iraq and Syria in 1977-1995, the author of the script of the film about Algeria;
Sergey Maslennikov – organizer and participant of the film expedition to Syria in 2010.