The official opening was held at the Joutseno school in a well equipped lecture hall. The headmaster of the school Mika Luukkonen, the director of the South Karelia Art Museum Paivi Partanen and the Senior Adviser for international relations of the Finnish National Board of Education Eila Raisa spoke at the opening. Eila Raisa emphasized that the activity of the new centres in Finland will encourage the development of cultural contacts between two countries. The opening was attended by research fellows of the museum, teachers as well as students. The electronic resources of the project, including the multimedia program “Kalevala”, generated a lot of interest especially amongst the students. A seminar for research fellows of the museum and teachers was held before the opening. Both the presentation and the seminar were held in English at the request of the audience.

The history of Lappeenranta, founded in 1649, is connected with the construction of a military fortress. The Art museum is located in the former barracks that were built during the reign of Paul I. The famous Russian commander Alexander Suvorov went to Lappeenranta twice to supervise the building of the fortress. The oldest stone orthodox church is situated opposite the Art museum. Recently the Art museum held an exhibition of works by Iliya Repin, which was a success with public. At the seminar research fellows from the Russian Museum showed the programs available in English and Finnish, and told about the resources that contain information reflecting the cultural and historic contacts between two countries. These parallels were very interesting for the research fellows of the museum and teachers, and can become the basis for the creation of new multimedia resources.

The South Karelia Art Museum is holding an active exhibition of works in conjunction with the museums of St. Petersburg (Penaty, Pavlovsk, and the Russian Museum). It is for this reason that the materials of the project's Mediateka will be useful additional sources for widening knowledge on Russian art. The research fellows of the museum will be consulting the school teachers in the use of the computer programs at the different lessons. The teachers of the Joutseno school were interested in the multimedia programs of the Russian museum as contemporary students are familiar with studying art and culture via computers. Besides few of them have visited the actual museum and some of the fascinating methods used in computer programs such as 3D and games can provide an additional motivation for exploring the world of art and visiting the real museum.

Interest in the project in Finland is growing steadily. The next opening is planned to take place in the Finnish town of Kankaanpaa in the autumn. This strong interest in the project is connected to the “Finland – Russia” program being undertaken by the Finnish Board of Education. The main goal of the program is the widening of cooperation between research fellows of the educational institutions of Finland and Russia, exchange of knowledge and experience, encouragement of international educational plans, business life and development of cultural contacts.