My Satka Architectural Festival of Magnezit Group has become the winner of Champions of Good Deeds–2017 contest of corporate volunteer projects in Local Communities nomination. The award ceremony was held in Moscow on 28 November in the framework of the Sixth International Forum Corporate Volunteering: Business and Society.

This nomination assumes meaningful participation of the company employees and engagement of volunteers in the activities aimed at development of local communities, including the cultural sphere.

The main production site of Magnezit Group is in Satka, Chelyabinsk Region. The authorities, people and business of the town endeavour joint efforts to reshape the town environment, to make it beautiful, comfortable and open to the whole world. 

For the second year in a row Magnezit Group arranges My Satka Architectural Festival. Architects and designers from Russia, Switzerland and Italy, as well as town enthusiasts and volunteers with active assistance of local schoolchildren, students of the college and secondary vocational technical schools took part in the festival.

The installations of the festivals are concentrated on two sites: the bench of the town pond in the old part of the town and Ruins area, the place of the demolished residential house near Magnezit Community Centre. It is worth noting that artistic images finally gain practical application: an abstract concrete dolmen has become a bus stop, planter compositions, which look lake old metallurgical furnaces, have appeared on the embankment of the pond. 

The victory at My Satka Festival is the public recognition of the relevancy of the direction chosen by Magnezit Group to develop the area and solve the problems of local communities. 

This policy of the company was proceeded by arrangement of Another Space International Festival of Street Art under auspices of Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council and the Italian Institute of Culture in Moscow. The Festival showed the way of the town environment transformation and accelerated the development of the youth creativity. Three duets of artists – Russian Aesthetics group, Swiss Nevercrew and Italian SOLO & DIAMOND – created five wall paintings. The facades of ordinary block of flats in Sitka West residential area caught the eyes of the artists. One more painting connected with the subject of humans and nature interaction was made on the infrastructure facility near the refuse piles formed in the result of raw magnesite mining. During the Festival, Satka became not only an international art studio, but also a filming location. The students of the Russian State Institute of Cinematography shot documentary films about the work of three teams.

This year Satka also hosted the Days of the Italian, Swiss and Slovak Culture.

Through the mediation of the Company Satka is filled with classical music every year: the town hosts Elena Obraztsova International Festival Carmen held under the slogan Big Art to Small Towns, which unites both famous and aspiring artists.

Corporate Volunteering: Business and Society Forum is the largest European expert platform in this area. The organizers traditionally include the Association of Managers and the National Council on Corporate Volunteering. Forum 2017 is aimed at generalization of the corporate volunteering experience in Russia, discussion of the possible ways to develop and strengthen the intersetoral partnership between business, society and authorities under corporate programs, discovery and promotion of technologies on involvement of company employees into voluntary activities.