Promotion of World Heritage Values: Experiences in St. Petersburg and Other Cities of Russia

The paper reflects the experiences of the social movements, civic initiatives and NGOs in St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia as well as in some other post-Soviet countries, aimed at the promotion and raising awareness of local populations about the World Heritage value in their cities. These efforts are needed, because the outstanding universal values of the historic centres of St. Petersburg and other cities are threatened by illegal construction, misguided urban planning, neglect and a lack of public attention; churches and cultural landscapes suffer from poor restoration, development pressure and an unregulated tourism boom. These effects are often possible because the almost most local population has no knowledge about the UNESCO World Heritage status and its implications. As a result, they are not sufficiently able to speak out for the protection of their site and do not know how the status of world cultural heritage can help them. Moreover, the population has little understanding of both the cultural value for their own community and what it means to be a World Heritage in general, leading to an insufficient realization of the potentials in the status of world cultural heritage. In this paper, we try both to show our previous research results and academic materials on the topic, but also reflect on our experience of participation in different activities, and especially within the recent project implemented in 2017 and aimed on intervention into the discursive and pragmatic space in the field of promotion and protection of St. Petersburg World Heritage site. However, to understand these experiences and reflections, it is necessary to present a historical context and conditions of the development of both the St. Petersburg World Heritage status and the St. Petersburg social movement for the protection of St. Petersburg world heritage.