How did we get the idea to take the exhibition "From the Land to the Peoples" to St. Petersburg? We realized that the exhibition was being shown in various countries around the world, and that the Movement had been emphasizing its importance. And so, we took the risk too. Yes, these are the right words to describe our timid and incompetent (in the professional sense of the term) attempt to put this show on in a city of 5 million people, the "cultural capital" of Russia.
But more important than our fear or our lack of ability was our desire to communicate to everybody what our life is like, to communicate that Event that has reached each one of us. Hearing of our desire to organize the exhibition, Fr. Paolo Pezzi said to Fr. Pietro that in doing it we would be able to love Christ more, and that the exhibition should not be simply a cultural initiative for us.
We discovered in the course of the show that it truly was an event. We chose to hold it in the exhibition hall of the A. Bloch Library, located on Nevskij Avenue, the main street of the city. We invited all our friends and acquaintances to participate in the organization. Pietro, for his part, invited the young people of the Catholic parishes of the city to help with publicity and to lead the guided tours of the show. We also invited Deacon Aleksandr Musin, Director of the Archeological Museum of the Orthodox Theological Academy, to help us in the preparation of the guided tours. Deacon Aleksandr highlighted something very significant, which is that this exhibition does not speak only about an event in the past, but about a fact that continues today in our midst. He, an Orthodox deacon, is aware of how many people in Russia consider Christ to be a myth invented by the apostles. He recognized how important it is that the stories illustrated by the show be seen as not only historical testimony, but as a source of hope.
We did not expect ideal results, sacrificing our insufficiencies and our errors for this great thing we had our hands on. We are not "professionals," we are simply people who love Christ. One day Misha said that what we were doing, we were doing first of all for ourselves, not expecting a "resounding" result. And thus for us the moment of the inauguration was even more surprising, when many people gathered out of interest in our exhibition, and when everyone who spoke at it (Jean-FranÁois, Director of the Religious Library of Moscow, the Director of the A. Bloch Library, the Episcopal Vicar Monsignor Antonini, Deacon Musin) expressed above all their wonder at the simplicity and clarity of the fact communicated by the show.
We were struck by the encounters with so many people. We met some by chance at the show, and others at the Christmas concert and the public meeting on the theme of the exhibition. They brought their friends, family, and children, returning over and over again so as to remember better and sometimes to copy something down from the texts on the panels. It was an amazing thing for us to see the hunger of these people who had heard what their hearts awaited. Once again, "we believed" that Christ is the answer to everything.

Oksana, Fr. Pietro Misha