Officials of St. Petersburg commented on the purchase, posted the other day on the official trading portal, to the Rise publication. The Committee for External Relations of St. Petersburg decided to purchase coat of arms pens, bowls and business card holders with views of the city, as well as gilded caviar bowls and malachite rosaries. The cost of one caviar box is 32 thousand rubles apiece, the rosary is 13 thousand rubles for each.
According to officials, all this is necessary for gifting foreign delegates. They decided not to buy cheaper souvenirs so as not to offend the guests.
“The artistic and commercial value of a gift usually reflects both the level of attitude towards the representative of the recipient state and the level of well-being of the donor state. For reasons of inadmissibility of offending guests due to violation of protocol rules and detracting from the prestige of St. Petersburg, it does not seem appropriate to purchase mass-produced souvenir goods presented in a retail trade network,” the committee said in a statement.
