VITEBSK, 11 July (BelTA) – Over 500 media workers from 11 countries have been accredited to cover this year's Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk festival, Director General of the Vitebsk Cultural Center and Festival Director Gleb Lapitsky said at a press conference dedicated to the opening of the 33rd edition of the international arts festival Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk, BelTA has learned.
The director of the festival added that this is a record number of media representatives.
“Slavianski Bazaar has welcomed guests from 42 countries,” he said. More than 6,000 people will take part in the festival. These are participants in the festival's projects, artists and others, Gleb Lapitsky remarked.
“On 4 July, our country joined a big family [of the SCO countries], we are very proud of this and are grateful to all members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for supporting this initiative of our president and accepting us as a full member of the SCO,” said the festival director. Vitebsk was one of the destinations on the itinerary of the press tour for journalists of the SCO countries.
The festival, dubbed as a cornflower forum, is about endless creativity, Gleb Lapitsky added. “In a broad sense, this is a project where incompatible genres and directions of creativity come together under the Vitebsk sky,” Gleb Lapitsky noted.
The festival will mark a number of anniversaries, the most important of which is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the city and country from the Nazi invaders, the 1,050th anniversary of Vitebsk, anniversaries of composers, artists, poets, cultural figures and more. Three days of the festival will be dedicated to the Union State. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Union State Treaty. All these topics will transcend into the festival's projects using the language of art. The festival can use artistic means to communicate important information to all kinds of audiences, including the youth, middle age people, and senior people. After all, Slavianski Bazaar is much more than nine large-scale gala concerts in the Summer Amphitheater or solo concerts in the renovated Vitebsk Concert Hall, said Gleb Lapitsky.
He recalled that the festival thrives thanks to the personal involvement of the president of Belarus: “For thirty years in a row, the head of state has attended Slavianski Bazaar. In fact, the festival was the first cultural project upheld by Aleksandr Grigorievich. And we feel this support every day.”
The 33rd edition of the international arts festival Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk is running on 9-15 July.
