No. 1, 2004

There is the same proverb among the Russian and the Moldovan people: “Good deeds mean goodwill.” Recently, an increasing number of companies have begun to realize their responsibility toward the public as a whole. Hence their increasing support for the social sphere. LUKOIL-Moldova is in the front rank of this noble movement.

The price of worthwhile deeds

Charity is one of the oldest traditions, which appeared together with Christianity. Private charity has always been help by sympathetic people for those undergoing difficulties, bad luck, and deprivation. Many people do good for those close to them who are in need, but a successful company can always do more.

JSC LUKOIL-Moldova has acquired a good reputation for worthy continuation of the best charitable traditions in the country.

From the first days of its work, the company has carried out active sponsorship and charitable works, geared to supporting the historical, cultural and spiritual legacy, helping the poor and disabled.

According to Deputy General Director of LUKOIL-Moldova, Constantine Soltan, the main objectives of the company's social program are the financing of socially significant important programs and socioeconomic projects for supporting national art, science, sport and education, as well as help to the disadvantaged and poor. Particular attention is focused on supporting the institutions whose activities include or envisage social services, and this inevitably resulting in the people's trust and a strengthening of the company's reputation in the country.

The Company is currently taking an active part in all the significant social programs in the Republic of Moldova.

One of the main spheres of charitable and sponsorship activities of LUKOIL-Moldova is providing support for World War II veterans, pensioners and those disabled at work. They are consistently provided with targeted financial assistance and presented with gifts. In addition, 27 World War II veterans and servicemen's widows have been granted a lifelong pension of 200 lei.

A major place in the company's charitable works belongs to assistance for medical institutions, which clearly demonstrates the natural human striving to support those in need of help and sympathy. The recipients of support include: the Republican Mother and Child Center, the Centrul Hippocrates organization, and the International Fund “Pentru unitatea poporului” (For the people's unity).

In its concern for the nation's future, LUKOIL-Moldova does much to help children from poor families, as well as specialized children's institutions. Every year more than 10,000 children from low-income families attend the charitable Christmas and New Year performance at the National Palace of the Arts sponsored by the Company.

The nation's intellectual potential is also the constant focus of the Company's attention. LUKOIL-Moldova has established monthly grants for 12 students and 2 postgraduates at the Technical University of Moldova. Financial assistance is also rendered regularly to this university in carrying out international events.

The company does its best to promote the development of national regions. For instance, financial aid was granted for the reconstruction of the Kodritsa complex, to the Kakhul municipality to celebrate the 500th anniversary of its founding, and to the Orgeev uyezd to install gas service in a number of its villages. The Bessarabian district was sponsored in publishing the book Basarabia un sat Bugeac.

By granting charitable assistance to the Orthodox Church, LUKOIL-Moldova supports the revival of religious traditions and the spiritual culture of society. Thus the Company allocated considerable charitable funds for restoration of the metropolitan see building in Chisinau.

Measures designed to develop physical culture and sport are a traditional sponsorship sphere. They include support for the capital's Zibru soccer club, since the General Director of LUKOIL-Moldova, Nikolay Cherny, is the President of this soccer club. In addition, the national weight-lifting and volleyball teams received financial assistance. Assistance in promoting equestrian sport at the Chadyr-Lunga stud farm and in organizing the European radio-orienteering championship should also be mentioned. Thanks to support from LUKOIL-Moldova, the 22-year-old Moldovan sportsman, Dorin Skimbov, a student at the Law Academy, was able to go to and win the world powerlifting championship in Edinburgh in November 2002. The Deputy General Director of the company, Constantine Soltan, stresses: “We are not promoting the physical culture movement in the country for any advertising purposes; we are supporting sport and a healthy way of life for the younger generation.”

In memory of Alexander Pushkin

Retention of the national cultural legacy is one of the Company's main tasks in the charitable sphere. It sponsors such important events as the International Festival of Choral Music in Kishinev, One Man Show and traditional Days of Russian Culture in Moldova.

However, special attention should, , be focused on LUKOIL-Moldova's activities in the sphere of the revival of spirituality and the maintenance of true cultural values, as clearly manifested in the assistance rendered to the Memorial House (Museum) of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) in Chisinau and its branch in the village of Dolna.

The Chisinau museum has a long and glorious history. It was opened on February 10, 1948, to memorialize Pushkin's stay in Bessarabia from 1820 to 1823. In recent years, it has housed the successful exhibitions Pushkin in the Fine Arts, A Collection of Variegated Chapters devoted to the 180th anniversary of the publication of the novel in verse Eugene Onegin. Preparations are currently under way for a new exhibition, entitled With Pushkin into the 21st Century.

On June 6, 2002, the opening ceremony was held of the renovated estate of boyar Zamfir Ralli in the village of Dolna, where Pushkin had spent some time. Next to the museum stands a unique monument to Alexander Pushkin by the Moscow sculptor Oleg Komov. It was set up in 1972. There are only two such monuments in the world: the original in Dolna and a copy in Madrid.

Almost forty years ago, the estate became a branch of Pushkin's Memorial House (Museum) in Chisinau and, for many years, up to 150,000 tourists from around the world would visit Dolna every year. There were even camping sites there. After 1989, however, it was closed for reconstruction and virtually deserted and forgotten. “The state of the Dolna estate was tragic,” says Alexandra Stakanova, Deputy Director of the Pushkin museum in Chisinau. “From 1963 to 1995, it was a branch of our museum. In 1995, a resolution was passed, handing over the estate to Nisporensky district, meaning it was virtually no one's concern. The building fell into disrepair and the roof fell in. The local farmers were guarding the estate at nighttime. They saved the exhibits from plunder. Only when the new president came to power it was taken seriously in hand. LUKOIL-Moldova allocated funds for the reconstruction, which was carried out by the Metall-market company. Now the estate has come back to life. I believe our spiritual legacy of a multinational culture comes from there.

The Ralli estate, or the House of Thinking and Concern as it was called at the time, was particularly refined, as were many of the houses of the local aristocrats. During his time in exile in Moldova, Pushkin was a guest there on many occasions and the amazing history and legends of the region inspired the poet to write his poem Gypsies. It was as if he wrote this poem from a live model, as he had actually experienced many of the events described in it. The streets of Dolna, Kodry, the picturesque hills, and the Zemfira meadow, named in honor of the gypsy Zemfira, daughter of the village headman, whose beauty overwhelmed the 22-year-old poet, all recall Pushkin's time here.

It is said that Pushkin spent three weeks at the gypsy camp in the village of Yurcheny, near Dolna. In the notes to the poem Gypsies, he wrote that “Bessarabia, known in ancient history, must be of particular interest to us. From Oleg and Svyatoslav to Rumyantsev and Suvorov, it has been our theater of war. To this day, it is unfairly known from the memoirs of only two or three travelers.”

It is symbolical that at the opening ceremony of the restored estate the President of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin, awarded LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov the Gloria Muncii award for special services in developing friendly relations and cooperation between the Russian and Moldovan people and a significant contribution to the restoration of historical and cultural monuments.

This award is also testimony that LUKOIL-Moldova has a clear and precise awareness of its noble social mission, which coincides with the interests of all society, and fulfils this mission to the full.