Позитивные изменения. Том 2, №4 (2022). Positive changes. Volume 2, Issue 4 (2022)

Several years ago, Dmitry Miromanov, a designer from Irkutsk, got tired of meeting corporate customers' orders and decided to do something useful for the society and inspiring for himself instead. Dmitry turned to crowdfunding platforms for inspiration and stumbled upon a guide to the unconventional places of St. Petersburg. Dmitry decided to make a similar guide about Irkutsk. Thus was born the Babr Book — a coloring quest book with creative tasks that allow a tourist to feel like a real Irkutian (Babr is a mythological monster, the symbol of Irkutsk). The book was released with the help of crowdfunding and quickly took a place of honor in the “Irkutsk food basket,” becoming one of the most popular souvenirs taken away from Irkutsk, along with candied cedar seeds and sagaan dali herbal tea. After the first Babr Book, Dmitry released the second, followed by a collection of comics about the legends of Lake Baikal, and then by various merchandize with Siberia-themed prints. Miromanov tests all his new ideas on Planeta.ru. He became the first crowdfunding producer in Siberia to be accredited by the platform, and at the invitation of the Planet he recorded a master class on the specifics of working with regional projects for the Planeta.ru Crowd Producers website. One of Dmitry's key tips is to appeal to local patriotism, to motivate urban communities and local bloggers to support the project, and to develop good neighbor relations. In 2020, the Babr Book was short-listed for the Silver Archer national award in the “Development and Promotion of Territories” category.

The Babr Book is not the only example of using crowdfunding to promote territorial development via an artifact. Thanks to the Planeta.ru projects, the first Chukchi merchandize appeared, illustrator Marina Demchenko published an original map “Voronezh in the Palm of Your Hand” in English, Magadan-based “Hunter” Publishing House prepared a reference map of the main landmarks and places of attraction for children and teenagers in its city.

The advantage of these “product”-related projects over campaigns to create or improve public spaces is that the result of the project — a guidebook, merchandise, a map — becomes the flagship reward. For their authors, crowdfunding is also a convenient way to collect pre-orders, and therefore an opportunity to regulate the final circulation and collect feedback on the product in advance.

THE CURTAIN

We can talk a lot about the most outstanding territorial development projects, but at the end of this lineup we would like to share an unusual example. In November 2020, the media broke the news that Dmitry Turkov, Art Director of the Motygino Drama Theater, had launched a crowdfunding campaign to repair the theater restrooms. The news spread quickly, and the 300,000 rubles requested were collected in a matter of days. Dmitry announced that the renovation of the restrooms was only the first step in turning the theater into a fully functional cultural center and a global revitalization of the region. The fact is that the village of Motygino in Krasnoyarsk Krai is the most remote point on the map of Russia with a professional theater. Dmitry and his troupe arrived there from St. Petersburg and tried to breathe new life into the theater: he organized guest performances by his colleagues from the capital, initiated visits by bloggers and journalists. The actors organized village clean-ups, played educational games with the children and gave English lessons. Dmitry would not agree to keeping Motygino as a reservation, as the MPs were openly suggesting. Turkov's campaign to revive Motygino raised more than 1.2 million rubles, and then… the art director was fired.

The actors left the theater together with Dmitry. The money Turkov had raised could no longer be used for its intended purpose, and he transferred it, less the production and mailing costs, to another theater project — renovation of Russia's only Village Theater, located in Leo Tolstoy village in the Kaluga Region. Dmitry explained his decision by the fact that this theater was also developing a small area through culture. He urged the project participants not to get upset: thanks to the broad publicity and public response, the theater in Motygino was transferred to the Krai government subordination. The building was partially renovated, so the original goals of the campaign were achieved. This is how one project breathed new life into two territories at once, although the ending did not go as the director had intended.