About the group

Our group is an informal association of people who are ready to devote their experience and knowledge to finding solution to one of the most crucial problems of the nowadays – preservation of cultural heritage monuments. Our work experience on various historical sites preceding to the group creation allowed us to understand the importance of a packaged approach to the evaluation of the condition of historical objects, monument monitoring in the changing environmental conditions, information documenting and processing according to the degree and causes of monument damage, practical restoration work. Creative thinking, contacts and informal discussions resulted in origination of an idea on founding a group which could offer new approaches to solution of the above tasks. The group includes specialists who have work experience in this area. They are restorers, biologists and mathematicians. As a result in 2006-2007 we developed and tested new methods of analysis and documenting of monument condition using up-to-date computer and digital technologies. Our ideas, plans and results are presented on this site.

Project Coordinator and Support

Irina Alexeeva

Irina Alexeeva is responsible for project coordination, liaison, dissemination and external communications. Previously Irina coordinated a number of research and analysis projects, including World Bank, IFC Foreign Investment Advisory Service, USAID, DFID, Tacis and FP6 EU-funded projects on private sector development, SME finance, knowledge management and innovations. She has strong skills in concept development, design, management and evaluation of international R&D projects. Irina has an extensive experience and proven results in liaison and promoting cooperation with Russian and international organizations, including international financial organizations, donors, local governments and business service providers. She was involved in organizing international workshops and conferences in Russia and in EU countries.

The restoration team

Albina Doos, Stanislav Shchigorets

Albina Doos and Stanislav Shchigorets are skilled restorers, artists and photographers. They have higher education in arts and a substantial experience in practical works on restoration of monuments and objects of cultural and historical heritage. They have been professionally engaged in restoration of stone and ceramic objects since 1980. The geographic areas of their works span from St.-Petersburg to Kazakhstan, Egypt, Spain.

They performed restoration works for the famous palaces and museums of Russia, such as:

The Great Katherine’s Museum Palace in Tsarskoye Selo (Leningrad Oblast),
The Great Palace in Peterhoff (Leningrad Oblast),
Museum Palaces in Lomonosov (Leningrad Oblast),
Menshikov’s Museum in St.-Petersburg.

In CIS countries, Albina Doos and Stanislav Shchigorets performed restoration of mausoleums of the Great Kazakh Khans, such as the Alasha-Khan Mausoleum, the Dzhuchi-Khan Mausoleum (XI-XIII centuries) in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

In Moscow, they performed restoration of ceramic panels by famous Russian artists Vrubel and Golovin on the facade of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow city centre.

In St.-Petersburg, Albina Doos and Stanislav Shchigorets were invited to take part in restoration of the Cathedral Mosque, the facade of the Marble Palace (the State Russian Museum), the huge statue “Angel with a Cross” on the roof of the Lutheran Cathedral in Nevsky Prospect, many stone statues and buildings in the historic centre of St.-Petersburg and in Nevsky Prospect. They contributed to the restoration of a unique 12-meter ceramic icon stand of the St.Peter and Paul’s Cathedral in Peterhoff.

On the occasion of the 300- anniversary of St-Petersburg, Albina Doos and Stanislav Shchigorets were invited to perform conservation works on the valuable historical monuments - the ancient sphinxes from Egypt on the Neva Embankment. These works were described in articles and publications in Russian mass media as well as in the American KMT Journal. The results of the conservation and research performed jointly with colleagues from St.-Petersburg University were described in a book entitled “Expert examination and assessment of stone in restoration” .

Owing to significant experience and professionalism, they were invited to participate in EU Mission on recovery and restoration of Colossi of Memnon in Luxor, Egypt.

Albina Doos and Stanislav Shchigorets participated in a series of exhibitions, including the exhibition “Restoration in the USSR”, photo exhibition “Forgotten Queen of Egypt” at the Central Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, exhibition of creative objects on the Canary Islands, Spain.

At present Albina Doos and Stanislav Shchigorets are engaged in research under Consolidator Project, dealing with the development and testing of an innovative technique for identification and sorting of stone fragments based on digital image analysis, which can be applied in repair and restoration of monuments and buildings, in historical research, etc.

The biological team

Dmitry Vlasov is the biologist, chief of the Saint Petersburg State University Mycology Lab., vice-president of the Saint-Petersburg Naturalist Society, PhD.
The main interests are the life and rock interactions in the different environment, ecology and evolution of microfungi, microbial communities in the cultural heritage monuments, microbial deterioration and degradation of stone, protection and conservation of monuments.
There is more than 15 years experience of research works (author more than 130 publications) on the many historical monuments as well as natural lithobiotic communities in the different environment: archeological sites in Crimea, Egypt historical monuments in Saint-Petersburg (more than 200 objects of cultural heritage), engineering constructions, natural rock (marble, limestone, sandstone, granite and others) in the different sites, lithobiotic microbial communities of Antarctica, White See Islands, Ladoga Lake Islands, etc.
Teaching in Saint-Petersburg State University (associate professor): Ecology of fungi, Geomycology, Biology in restoration.

Zelenskaya Marina is the biologist, scientist of the Saint Petersburg State University Mycology Lab.Mycology, PhD.
The main interests are the biological colonization of the cultural heritage monuments in urban environment, protection and conservation of monuments.
There is more than 8 years experience of research works (author more than 20 publications) in many historical monuments in Crimea and Saint-Petersburg; the leader of the biological research group in the Chersonessus of Tauride and participant of the research team on the monitoring of Saint-Petersburg historical objects.