Library Night at HSE: Shakespeare, Museums and Quests
Almost 40 teams took part in the ‘Through the pages of Basmania’ quest, organized by the Higher School of Economics as part of an annual citywide event, Library Night. Event participants also staged passages from Romeo and Juliet and attended lectures about theatre at HSE library.
How are libraries and theatre connected? What do finance and religious education have in common? Where was the first Moscow public library opened? These were some of the questions participants of the historical quest ‘Through the pages of Basmania’ had to answer. The event was organised by HSE in cooperation with Basmanny district museum ‘Basmania’ and Moscow central libraries.
teams
people per team
best teams received gifts from HSE
minutes was the best team time (the participants travelled the route by bicycle)
hours it takes to walk the longest quest route by foot
Yulia Solovyova, Quest participant ‘Everything made sense, and I really liked it’
— Quest tasks always fall into one of two extremes: it’s either something super interesting but completely impossible to solve with no hint to start with, or it’s something too simple, and therefore unexciting. In this quest everything turned out to be great.
The quest, which was open to anyone interested in participating, started at 20 Myasnitskaya ulitsa and ended at 3 Krivokolenny pereulok.
The landmarks of the route included:
The Russian State Public Historical Library;
The House of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam;
Milutinsky Park;
Vasily Zhukovsky Library;
Fyodor Dostoevsky Library.
Another quest was held in the HSE library on Staraya Basmannaya and was dedicated to theatre and William Shakespeare. The participants attended an interactive lecture about theatre, a master class on public speaking and staged a passage from the tragedy Romeo and Juliet.
Library Night is an annual Russia-wide event dedicated to books and reading. This year it was held for the seventh time. On the holiday, Moscow libraries, bookstores, museums and cultural centres are open to visitors until late night, and sometimes all night. Those who like reading attend lectures, master classes, and take part in flash mobs and competitions.
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