Wiki Loves Monuments is a photography competition, organised for the sixth time in 2015, and has now collected over 1,5 million photos of monuments across the world. There are major differences in the national approaches towards cultural heritage, and volunteers organising the competition face different challenges across the world. Sometimes getting the lists of monuments is the main challenge, other times it is a legal, cultural or geographical challenge. We hope to continue spreading enthusiasm for free knowledge and cultural heritage across the world, and make information about cultural heritage available across the world.

Russia – Russia faces major challenges in its internal diversity and vast geographic distances. Last year, Russian organizers boosted geographical coverage by launching a separate prize for the maximum number of visited regions. Two participants traveled each thousands of kilometers through the whole country to cover 30 of Russia’s 81 regions, from the Amber Coast to the Pacific Coast and from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea. One of the winners, Evgeny Lazarev, told us that his 1298 photos were an outcome of his frequent traveling by car over the last 6 years.

Italy - No other country had more photographers participating to the 2015 contest and the contributed photos are accessed millions of times each month on Wikimedia sites alone. But this did not come easily – besides a lot of effort by volunteers, staff and 320 official partners, some legal challenges had to be overcome. Participants could only take photos of Pompei and some other 3000 items, a fraction of Italy's cultural heritage.

The main obstacle to the promotion of Italian culture is "Codice Urbani", a law which forces photographers to enquire the local authority about protected status for each building, ask authorisation and pay fees if required. For objects created in the last 150 years, an additional obstacle is copyright for the architect, given the lack of freedom of panorama. To help photographers, Wikimedia Italia acquired this permission in advance for 392 custodian entities.

Netherlands – The country where Wiki Loves Monuments started in 2010 has over 60.000 recognised national monuments. After four photo competitions and the wonderful donation of hundreds of thousands of photos by the cultural heritage agency, many monuments have a free photo available. What to photograph next?

The next challenge was in municipal monuments, with one slight problem: each municipality is responsible for determining and maintaining their list. While some municipalities publish proudly lists of their local heritage, others have have not recognised local heritage, or are even reluctant to share the lists. After many phone calls and emails, volunteers managed to gather a unique database of Dutch municipal monuments with more than 80% of the municipalities covered.

(Article by Lodewijk Gelauff, Alexander Tsirlin and Federico Leva)

POSSIBLE PHOTOS:

(Russia)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Соловецкий_монастырь.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Кронштадт. Никольский собор на Якорной площади.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Сергэ (коновязи) на Бурхане.JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Petra i pavla kogevnikah 2.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Пролетарка 70.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Церковь Рождества Пресвятой Богородицы из села Передки (не позднее 1539).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Надвратная_башня_Смоленск.jpg

You can also check the full short-list from last year:
https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Вики_любит_памятники-2015/Шорт-лист

(Italy)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Sacra_ammantata_dalla_neve.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biblioteca_Gambalunga_(Rimini)-4.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palazzo_Ducale_-_Urbino_2.JPG

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piazza_del_Popolo_panorama.jpg

(Netherlands)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brouwershaven_molen_Windlust.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Groesbeek_(NL)_Bredeweg,_Antonius_van_Paduakerk_(03).JPG

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloemenbuurt_03.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Noorderbegraafplaats_laan_in_tuin.JPG

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dudok_Politiepost.jpg