Children from orphanages №4 and №7 had a wonderful opportunity to admire pictures of wild nature at the exhibition “Golden Turtle” hosted by the New Manezh. With great interest they examined photographs of animals, read annotations and discussed their impressions.

This exhibition inspired our children very much and afterwards they drew animals and birds during art classes with big enthusiasm.

On the 10th March kids from the boarding school №4 took part in the municipal sports festival “Health Day” in the “Krasnaya Presnya” park. Those who like outdoor activities could join an action-packed programme which included sports games, dances, musical performance and stuntmen show.

Frosty and sunny weather, hot tea from a field-kitchen, the bus which was waiting for the children and then took them to the metro – all this added to children’s high spirits. Our big gratitude to municipality “Tverskoe” for the invitation!

The pancake week in our studio was delicious, as usual. Each day children fried pancakes under the guidance of teachers Olga Agafonova and Maria Pimenova and after that devoured them with big pleasure not forgetting to share them with adults.

And on 25 February, Saturday, we attended a festival on Tverskoy boulevard where we were also treated with pancakes, attended a rifle-range and even tried our hand in rock-climbing. This time we were invited by Municipality “Tverskoy” to the event. Thank you so much!

On the 20^th February – which was the first day of school holidays – children, visiting our art center, attended a fascinating show by the world-known figure skater Evgeniy Pluschenko  “The Bremen Town Musicians”. It took place at the Luzhniki ice rink.

On February 14-18 our annual winter adaptation camp took place at the “Sorochany” resort. The camp hosted 15 children from the special correctional boarding school №4 and 5 children from the boarding school №28 as well as our dear volunteers and staff members.

On January 24-29 volunteers of Maria’s Children Arts center – artists, clowns, actors and just friends – paid a new visit to Beslan. For several days the School №1 hosted various workshops (this time not only for pupils but also for teachers): painting a huge mural, modern dance, clowning and juggling, balloon-modeling and cardboard town building, theatre improvisation and games, water make-up and t-shirt coloring, talks on architecture and first aid training. 

On the fourth day the children and the guests enjoyed participation in a collaborative amateur performance that showed how many things one can learn in just three days and that once established friendship between the Beslan and Moscow children has been growing from year to year, becoming stronger due to the common cause.

Eurasia” drilling company granted us and our colleagues, union of nongovernmental organizations “All Together”, tickets to a New Year performance “Ginger Nick and a Magic Atelier”.

Among the kids who visited the show on the 31th December were children from the orphanage №28 and some other children from large and disadvantaged families. Everyone liked the performance very much – it was incredibly colorful, with fabulous circus acts. Kids were also given sweet presents.

It’s not for the first time that the “Tverskoy” branch of the Russian Society for Sports and Technology in Moscow has organized a paintball tournament for our children and volunteers. On the 24^th of November the kids from boarding school №4 and children from large and disadvantaged families acquainted themselves with military sports.

On 21 November a group of high school students from boarding school №4 had a tour around the Yandex head office. Our friendship with Yandex has been as long as Yandex exists! During this period the company moved offices several times, and the horses painted by our children and bought by the Yandex CEO Arkadi Volozh at our charity auction many years ago have been moving along – we saw them welcoming us at the entrance. Yandex employee Kristina Minaeva guided us through several office floors and each of them was full of surprises.