International Academy of Kindness

The province of Cebu in the Philippines received an unusual gift – a bronze monument called ‘Dandelion’. The art piece was donated by a well-known Russian artist, Gregory Pototsky. He is also the head of the International Academy of Kindness that has installed over 60 monuments in various countries. The monument ‘symbolizes the fragility of friendship, love and kindness’. He had also given an earlier gift to Philippines in gratitude for President Elpidio Quirino’s aid to 6,000 Russian refugees in 1951.

The artist says that the academy was founded when he and some friends reached the conclusion that the only solution to many of life’s problems is simple kindness. He cites himself as living proof, recalling his days in Stalin’s GULAG, where people survived merely on the benevolence of one another. The mission of the IAK is to both promote solving conflict with compassion, and to support individuals and organizations that follow humanistic principles, because “only kindness and gratitude can save the world and make it a better place.”