Embassy Press Release

REMARKS BY AMBASSADOR NICHOLAS TAUBMAN ON THE OCCASION OF THE COMPLETION OF THE AMBASSADOR’S FUND FOR CULTURAL PRESERVATION GRANT TO THE VILLAGE MUSEUM

Ministry of Culture, May 22, 2007

Minister Iorgulescu,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor and a privilege to be back here today at the Ministry of Culture. Thank you, Minister Iorgulescu, for hosting us today.

Last year, in February, the Minister and I were here together to announce a grant to the “Dmitrie Gusti” National Village Museum for a special project funded under the auspices of a U.S. State Department program entitled the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation.

This U.S. program is designed to provide small grant support for worthwhile heritage preservation projects in countries around the world. It was established by the U.S. Congress in 2001.

To date, the Ambassador's Fund has supported 379 projects worldwide, totaling $9.5 million. Funded projects include technical support for the restoration of historic buildings; assessment and conservation of museum collections; archaeological site preservation; documentation to save threatened traditional crafts; improved storage conditions for archives and manuscripts; recording oral history; and documentation of indigenous languages.

My predecessors and I have been fortunate to have obtained a number of grants under this program for important Romanian projects, such as the restoration of the Courtyard at Stavropoleous Monastery in Bucharest, the restoration of murals at the St. Nicholas Church in Densus, the restoration of the façade of the Banfy Palace in Cluj, and, of course, the photographic preservation project here at the National Village Museum.

We provided $21,000 to the Museum for a project to help preserve historic photographs and negatives on film and glass dating from 928 to 1936, which were in danger of irreversible decay.

In addition to supporting the preservation and safe storage of these materials, funds were made available to help digitize the images and to make them available via the Internet to scholars and the general public in a new “Dimitrie Gusti Digital Library of Ethnographic Images.”

Today we are here to see the results of this very important project. I am looking forward, in particular, to seeing our friends from the museum demonstrate their new website, which provides access to the images to scholars and the general public.

We are pleased to have been able to support this project, which I hope will contribute in at least a small way to the preservation of Romania’s important cultural heritage.

Thank you.

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