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Kirill Tyurdenev, CEO of NIS, received the order on behalf of Alexander Dyukov The highest award of the Serbian Orthodox Church was given at the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade today, as part of the ceremony marking the beginning of works to put up a mosaic on the main dome of the church. The completion of the interior decoration of the entire central dome has been planned for the end of this year, and the mosaic, which is funded by Gazprom Neft with €4 million, will be put up on 1,230 square meters of the dome. The mosaic of special glass and stone representing the Ascension of Our Lord was made in a special art workshop in Moscow and the art works were managed by Nikolai Mukhin, an academician and a member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts, a people’s artist of Russia. His Holiness, Patriarch of Serbia, Irinej presented the Order of Saint Sava to Kirill Kravchenko “The Church of Saint Sava is a symbol of friendship between the people of Serbia and Russia. I take pride in the fact that today we see another specific result of our support for the preservation of cultural and historical heritage of the Serbian people in the form of the mosaic for the main dome of the Church. After having spent eight years in Serbia, the Order of Saint Sava presented to me has a special meaning for me and ties me to Serbia even stronger,” said Kirill Kravchenko. Having become the majority owner of NIS, Gazprom Neft became not only the leading foreign investor in Serbia, but also the largest social investor. Within the framework of the programme to support humanitarian projects in the field of culture and preservation of Serbia’s historical heritage and in addition to the act of painting of the dome of the Church of Saint Sava, Gazprom Neft has also helped the reconstruction of the Russian Necropolis in Belgrade and many cultural projects, such as Emir Kusturica’s Bolshoi Festival.
