XI Republican Festival of National Cultures
The main theme of the festival is “Belarusians are a uniting nation”, the idea of the festival is “We are for peace, the WORLD is for us!”.
In 2016, the final events of the XI Republican Festival of National Cultures in Grodno were held under the patronage of UNESCO, which were attended by more than 2000 people, representatives of various nationalities and guests of the festival. 22 national farmsteads represented 38 peoples living in Belarus.
In the Kazakh courtyard, one could look into the yurt, sirtaks danced in Greek, in the Jewish havanagil, in the Dagestan lezginka. An Iranian tent was opened for the first time.
New nationalities joined the festival: Syrians, Sri Lankans, Americans (USA) and Nigerians took part in the festive procession of representatives of the diasporas. In their honor, they planted a tree in the Friendship Park, which was founded at the festival in 2014.
The townspeople were surprised by the new episodes of the festival:
• creation of the "Ethno-greenhouse" and a concert in honor of its laying,
• changing the technology of the holiday and holding the procession in the form of a motorized parade,
• conducting a laser fire and video show,
• on-line radio broadcasts of the festival and radio battle,
• exhibition of national utensils and weapons,
• ethno-concert of performers with a folklore manner of performance,
• creation of an integral “art-town” in the “old arbat” style on Sovetskaya street (artists, mimes, sculptures, dances, etc.),
• sport competitions.
On the second day of the festival, on June 5, our museum was opened - the Museum of Friendship of Peoples.