Moscow, November 19, 2003. An information and education center, Russian Museum’s Virtual World, will open in Nizhny Novgorod State University on November 21 within the framework of the State Russian Museum’s project, “The Virtual World of Art Museums,” with Sistema JSFC acting as its general sponsor. Setting up a network of virtual museums in Russian and West European cities is an important area of cooperation between Sistema JSFC and the Russian Museum. According to current plans, virtual museums are to be opened during 2004 in Berlin, Murmansk, Petrozavodsk, Saratov and Samara. The project “The Virtual World of Art Museums” is being implemented under a comprehensive cooperation program between the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and art museums in other Russian cities. The cooperation agreement Sistema JSFC and the Russian Museum signed in June 2003 seeks to augment the Russian Museum’s cultural, scientific, methodological, organizational, and creative potential. Under this agreement, Sistema JSFC and its subsidiaries will give $10 million to the Russian Museum in direct aid such as funding and services between 2004 and 2014. The museum will use this aid to put into life several long-term projects, including promotion of its publishing operations in and beyond Russia, renovation and restoration of the museum and its collections, and educational programs, among other projects. True to the principles of the business community’s social responsibility, Sistema JSFC is carrying out a number of other programs in culture to support museums, reinvigorate and promote musical culture, restoration of cultural and architectural value and monuments, and so on. Project-based and targeted approach is the Corporation’s charity and sponsorship principle. Sistema Joint-Stock Financial Corporation is one of Russia’s biggest diversified holding companies. Organized in 1993, Sistema JSFC now owns and actively manages a diversified investment portfolio and enterprises in various industries: telecommunications (MTS, MGTS, MTU-Inform, etc.), electronics (NIIME and Mikron plant, and several microelectronics enterprises), insurance (ROSNO), finance and securities (commercial bank AKB MBRR), real estate and construction (Sistema-Hals), travel and tourism (Intourist), trade (Detsky Mir group of companies), and so on. V.P. Yevtushenkov has been Chairman of Sistema JSFC’s Board of Directors since 1993, and Y.G. Novitsky its President since 1995. State Russian Museum is the first public museum of arts to open in Russia, the biggest repository of Russian art and one of the highly prestigious world centers of science research and cultural education. It was founded in 1895 as a public museum of history and archaeology. The museum’s collections display Old Russian art (paintings by Andrei Rublev, Dionisius, and Semeon Ushakov), works of traveling artists and leading Russian painters (Repin, Vrubel, Bakst, Benois, Serov, and so on), and the art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Filonov and Petrov-Vodkin, among others). For more detail, contact: Investor Relations Department Andrei Bliznyuk Tel: +7 095 730 1543 bliznyuk@sistema.ru Press Office Olga Pestereva Tel + 7 095 730 1705 pestereva@sistema.ru