"The tender for construction and restoration works at the New Jerusalem Monastery will be announced on June 15. Application envelopes will be opened a month later, with the final results to be made public at the end of July," Mr Zubkov said to the foundation's board.

"The foundation has coped, on the whole, with its duties for the first half of the year, and considerable progress has been made in some aspects. The work is moving apace, with the majority of assignments having productive results."

In particular, anti-damage works have been organised, front-end engineering and design launched, and relevant archive research started.

The greatest attention should now belong to the completion of anti-damage works, the formalisation of property and land agreements, the construction management tender, and drawing up the monastery restoration concept.

All that will allow the beginning of full-scale restoration as soon as possible, Mr Zubkov said. He called to take into account the authoritative opinion of the foundation expert council, on whose initiative an exhibition of competitive restoration designs will open on June 19, which the Deputy Prime Minister highly appreciates.

The foundation board has scheduled its next meeting for the third quarter of 2009.