In a touching ceremony reflecting the excellent, and indeed human relations existing between Malta and the city of St Petersburg, Valentina Matvienko, the city's governor and a former Russian Ambassador to Malta, officially expressed the city's gratitude to the people of Malta for funding the restoration of an antique church organ located in the Malta Chapel at the Vorontsov Palace.
This famous church organ was among a list of artistic and historic objects for which the St Petersburg Municipal Committee for the Use and Preservation of Monuments (KGIOP) had been seeking corporate sponsors for their restoration.
On its part, the Corinthia Group, which has strong investment interests in this city, agreed to fund the €75,000 restoration project, and this on behalf of the people of Malta. A formal ceremony and classical concert marking the rehabilitation of the organ, were held on January 20 inside the Malta Chapel, for which President Emeritus Guido de Marco, and Alfred Pisani, chairman and CEO of the Corinthia Group, were especially invited by KGIOP chairman Vera Dementieva. Despite temperatures of -30°C, some 250 persons attended the ceremony, including several senior city officials.
Governor Matvienko, who presided over the ceremony, thanked the Corinthia Group, and the people of Malta for this gesture, and warmly recalled her years in Malta as Ambassador. On his part, Professor de Marco underlined the excellent relations that have existed between Malta and Russia throughout the centuries, referring in particular to Mrs Matvienko's wisdom in handling her ambassadorial duties in Malta during the changeover period from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation in the early Nineties.
The Malta Chapel was added to the Vorontsov Palace in St Petersburg in 1798, when Tsar Paul became Grand Master of the Order of Malta. The chapel's organ is a rare monument of organ building in Russia, whose original structural characteristics have now been fully restored.
International Hotel Investment plc, the publicly listed company, in which Corinthia Group is the major investor, is at present undertaking the largest investment in the hotel sector in St Petersburg. In 2002, IHI acquired the five-star Nevskij Palace Hotel on the main boulevard of what is in effect Europe's fourth largest city. The hotel was acquired together with four adjoining vacant buildings, occupying in total a land plot of 12,000 m2.
IHI has since refurbished the existing hotel bedrooms and corridors, and is now undertaking a major construction project in the adjoining buildings to (i) extend the 288-room hotel by a further 105 executive bedrooms; (ii) develop the city's first convention centre accommodating 1,000 persons; (iii) upgrade the existing hotel lobby, public areas and restaurants; and (iv) develop 15,000 m2 of commercial areas for lease as retail and office units.
The project will be completed in mid-2007.