THE EXHIBITION "THE PILGRIMAGE TO CYTHERA"

has been held due to efforts and support of many museums, organizations and Western companies. The central exhibition hall "Manezh" expresses its deep gratitude to all the museums that agreed to participate in the exhibition, to the staff of these museums who helped with the selection of display material, scientific articles and annotations for the catalogue. We express our gratitude to the Russian National Library for cooperation and help, to the Cultural Committee under the Administration of St Petersburg and the Ministry of Culture of Leningrad Region for their financial support, to the Institute for Cultural Programmes for their help in the organization of the exhibition, to Radio stations "Baltica" and "Europa Plus" for advertising campaign.

Besides, we would like to thank all the individuals whose enthusiasm and initiative were of great help in the realization of this project: T.Bult (Regional Museum Centre),

L. Garbar (Premier Casino Club), S. Gevorskaya (Ministry of Culture of Leningrad Region), S.Ilchenko (Committee of Culture under the Administration of St Petersburg), I. Kizilova (Institute for Cultural Programmes), V. Lemekhov (architect and designer of the exhibition), V.Rozanov and L. Rozanova (Counsellor of the Russian Embassy at Norway and his spouse), A. Piotrovskaya ( Nordic Council of Ministers), S. Snezhkin (film director, the "Lenfilm" studio), V. Syrov ( curator of the Fund of Science and Technology, Museum of the History of St. Petersburg), I. Shcherbakova, S. Urkevitch (artist-producer, the "Lenfilm" studio).

We are extremely grateful to organizations and individuals that organized and carried out shows programs accompanying the exhibition:

O. Zapolskaya (show programme curator), O. Yakubkhanova (show programme manager),

V. Kamentseva (florist designer), S. Frolov and G. Filatova (artists-producers), S.Lukovsky (producer choreographer), V. Yanishevsky (programme host), U. Maikov (technical director), Beauty Salon "Vlada" (director T. Shamenkova), Model Agency "Ex-Elite" (artistic director E. Reshetova, producer O. Vasilenko), Company "Rampa" (Riga).

We also would like to thank those Scandinavian companies

which showed a great interest to the idea of the project from the very beginning and contributed a lot to its fulfilment. The exhibition of such scale would not have been possible without their financial support.

The Central Exhibition Hall `Manezh" expresses its deep gratitude to all the Scandinavian Consulates that offered their help in establishing the necessary contacts, to the Council for Foreign Affairs of Norway and Svenska Institut that agreed to cover the expenses related to the transportation of paintings by Scandinavian artists, to Finnair, the company that provided the opportunities to the Scandinavian artists to come to St Petersburg.

We also would like to thank all the individuals from the Scandinavian countries for their help in the realization of the project:

Anders Hedman (Nordic Council of Ministers), Michael Benthe (Vice-President of Swedish Consulate General), Maria Magnussen, Ulf Gronlund (Sweden);

Kirsti Gulovsen, Tom Sander,Holger Koefoed (Norway).

And, at last, we are grateful to all the artists of St Petersburg and Scandinavian countries for the participation in the exhibition. Their works of art created especially for the exhibition were, certainly, their artistic contribution to the fulfilment of the project.

We are happy to invite you to an exhibition which will show you a great power of love, and , as a result, the culture of human behavior.