Sobranie Fund and the French Institute of Culture started cooperation in 2017. With the Institute’s assistance, Satka, a small industrial town in South Ural, hosted the events which enabled to get better understanding of the rich heritage of the world art center.

In 2017 Lea Barbanzange, a young artist, spent almost the whole summer in Satka during the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art. She was studying the nature of the magnesite mineral, revealing its uniqueness through new art objects.

The cultural dialogue continued in October 2017, during Carmen, the 1st Elena Obraztsova's International Festival of Classical Music. At “Flickering of the Piano, Light of the Violin…” concert the duo of Agnés Pyka (violin) and Laurent Wagschal (piano) performed pieces of music of French composers. 

The South Ural citizens were further immersed in the variety of contemporary music during jazz band concerts. "Old & New Songs" quartet presented the authorial program to the audience – world folklore through the prism of jazz. "Paul Lay Trio", a band of young performers, made a presentation of their recent album “The Party” for the first time in Russia.

Since 2020, the work on a large-scale original project by photographer Bruno Boudjelal and writer François Beaune has been underway. Their joint efforts will result in an exhibition of Beaune’s texts based on the stories of the Satka residents he met during his visits to the city as part of the art residence of the Sobranie Fund and Boudjelal’s photographs. 

As part of the support, the French Institute of Culture presented books of classical and contemporary prose, philosophical works, volumes of French poetry and plays, as well as modern children's and educational literature.