October 19-20, 2010

Council of Europe meeting was held in Florence (Italy), devoted to the decade of the European Landscape Convention adoption (http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/heritage/Landscape/VersionsConvention/russian.pdf ). Currently, it is already signed by 38 European countries and ratified by 32 countries. The ceremonial meeting was held under the patronage of the Italian President and the Mayor of Florence. The representative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a member of the Federal Assembly of Russian Federation, V.V. Sudarenkov, addressed the meeting with the official welcome. Russia has not signed the Convention yet, but the problems of territorial development of the country will inevitably raise the question of acceding to it. At the same time at the University of Florence on St. Mark's Square there was a conference "Living Landscapes" held, organized by the united European universities - UNISCAPE. To get information on this conference and other activities of UNISCAPE please, visit:  (http://www.uniscape.eu/pageNews.php?idCont=788&lang=entit=LIVING%20LANDSCAPE%20The%20European%20Landscape%20Convention%20in%20research%20perspective). The conference was attended by over 200 experts from different European countries. The problems of landscape perception by the human beings, identification and typology of landscapes, the effects of political decisions on landscape future and participation of people in landscape development were discussed at the conference.