On the first day of summer, the children’s arts and crafts school held an important, long-awaited event: the graduates defended their diploma projects today. The children have been getting ready for this day for eight years to display knowledge and skills they learned during their exciting and fruitful studies at school.

Children’s arts and crafts school is the structural subdivision of the Alexandrinskaya Orthodox school at the monastery. With the blessing of Hegumenia Sergia of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery, it opened its doors in Diveyevo in 2012. Last year, the school celebrated its first ten-year anniversary.

About a hundred children from Diveyevo, nearby villages and refugees from Ukraine study drawing and crafts there. And today six graduates completed their education there. They are from the eighth and ninth grades. There are a few more years of studies left for them at the secondary school, but two boys have already chosen their future profession and are going to try to enter the art schools.

Ever since the school was founded, Vladimir Tulyakov, member of the Artist Union of Russia and the UNESCO International Association of Fine Arts, has been its director. Vladimir Yurievich is an artist who worked as a teacher for many years. Besides, he paints and restores icons, churches, gilds iconostases and creates jewelry.

Vladimir Yurievich says that the school offers its graduates the support to guide them into profession, so that they can continue learning before entering higher educational establishments of specialized art schools. It helps them to maintain the skills they have already learned and continue to excel under the guidance of teachers.