On 22 September 2018, the Bank of Russia opened its doors to the public, holding an Open Day in 88 cities of Russia. Over 60,000 people became the mega-regulator’s guests, of which more than a half could visit the premises usually closed for outsiders and attended lectures and excursions to the Bank's museum.
Bank of Russia regional branches conducted master classes to determine banknotes authenticity, staged thematic exhibitions, and delivered lectures on the topical issues of the financial market, including countering fraud. Guests were provided with the opportunity of having their photos taken in the antique interiors of offices of governors of the divisions of the State Bank of the Russian Empire of late 19th - early 20th centuries, having a look into collector cars and learning their gears, and trying on collector helmets and bullet-proof vests. One of the guests in the Republic of Tyva could even dance with a 12-kilo bullet-proof vest on.
Thematic contests, competitive games and quests were organised for young guests. Children were engaged in solving rebuses, making crafts from shredded banknotes, drawing pictures, and watching ‘financial’ shows and theatrical performances. Some even got a chance to put the pieces of a large banknote puzzle together.
The third Open Day held in the Year of Volunteer was dedicated to volunteers of financial education. At the Bank of Russia premises socially active volunteers presented their projects to raise financial literacy of various groups of population which help people acquire a basic set of financial knowledge and skills.
The youngest volunteer of financial education was the first-grade pupil Dima from Tomsk, who told children and grown-ups about the careful attitude to money for several hours in a row. Perm volunteers demonstrated a table game for senior pupils: a financial simulator ‘Money Flow’. Kaluga volunteers expounded on the rules for family budget planning to newly wedded couples, who had just left the civil registry office. Presentation of ‘silver volunteers’ was in the focus in Kursk, where elderly people told about their participation in the financial education of their peers.
In Gorno-Altaisk, the winners of the financial quiz went for a ride in the ‘Financial Express’ along the alleys of the central park. Nizhny Novgorod citizens built a complicated mechanism consisting of pinions symbolising Bank of Russia various tasks. At the restored historic building of the Omsk branch guests could for the first time visit the money storeroom, where the gold reserve of the Russian Empire had been kept during the reign of Alexander Kolchak, and make sure of the reliability of the door locks fixed there more than a century ago. In Yoshkar-Ola, Bank of Russia guests played money curling and a ‘touchy exhibition’ was organised for the visually impaired, where they could touch museum exhibits, i.e., coins, banknotes, and cash equipment. Excursionists in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Vladivostok, Orel, and Cheboksary assessed their financial knowledge taking part in business and intellectual games and Bank of Russia guests in Saratov studied the global currency map and now they know for sure that the ngultrum is the currency of the Kingdom of Bhutan. In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, volunteers from the Russian Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the North acquainted guests with the early history of merchandise trade in Kamchatka, and in Anadyr car and motorbike fans staged a race on quadricycles to support the Open Day and draw attention to Bank of Russia financial literacy website. Magadan hosted a master class to compile a CV/resume that gives the employer a reason to see the compiler for interview.
For more details on the Open Day events, see the news of each Bank of Russia branch in the section Regional Branches.
Other photos from the Bank of Russia’s Open Day are available on the regulator's social networking sites facebook and vk.
24 September 2018