Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Statement of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski at SEE Ministerial Conference in Ohrid

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has announced that the Government will allot resources for revival of the St. Clement University and construction of a floating museum.

Widely known in the world as the first 9-century Slav University, St. Clement University will be located in the compound of the St. Clement Church at Plaosnik, its original venue. Monastery shelters (rooms) will be constructed in the compound and will have both sacral and secular character. This means that the Faculty of Theology or the Secondary School of Theology in Skopje are planned to move to a part of the building with shelters. There will also be a monastic order. And the secular part will include libraries, reading rooms, exhibiting parlours and halls for other cultural events.

St. Clement University is planned to be completed in three years, Prime Minister Gruevski said. The work will be done in phases and the money is provided from the budget for 2007. The first phase will be carried out in parallel to archaeological research of the whole complex of Plaosnik for the contents of the underground vaults, archaeologist Pasko Kuzman said. In the meantime, tenders for conceptual designs of the University will be released.

In two years, a floating museum will be opened in Ohrid. That will be a reconstructed settlement of lake-dwellings which Pasko Kuzman discovered in his underwater explorations seven years ago. He found 6000 wooden piles on the bottom of the lake which served as a wooden platform for the dwellings of people 3200 years ago in the Bronze Age.

The Floating Museum will be built in the Bay of Bones in Gradiste. Kuzman also said Gradiste would thus become an even more attractive tourist settlement for the world.

No comments: