MOSCOW, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - A moratorium on the privatization of cultural monuments could be lifted later this year, a senior Russian culture official said Tuesday.
"We are getting ready to consider lifting the moratorium, and the issue may be solved at the end of the year," Andrei Busygin, deputy minister of culture and mass communications, told the upper house of Russia's parliament.
Busygin said government funding to restore and preserve a number of national cultural monuments was scarce, and privatization could be a solution to save them.
"We would like not only mansions but private museums to thrive in Russia as well," Busygin said.
He said a law lifting the moratorium, which was imposed in 2002, could be drafted with the assistance of the federal communications and cultural legislation oversight agency.
