Press releases

GRODNO, 3 April (BelTA) – The international water tourism festival Nemanskaya Vesna 2015 will take place on the Augustow Canal on 17-19 April, BelTA learnt from the Grodno Oblast Office of the National Tourism and Sports Union.

Competitions will be held on the river Ostashanka on the territory of the Augustow Canal near the village of Nemnovo. The event will gather about 300 participants from Minsk, Belarusian oblasts, various tourism clubs, sport and educational establishments and organizations. Invited to join the festival are also teams from Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia. Competitions will be held among nearly 15 teams comprising 16 people each.

Athletes and enthusiasts will compete in the fastest catamaran and canoe water passing in individual and team events.

The canoe qualification runs are scheduled for 17 April. The festival will be officially opened on 18 April. Canoe and catamaran individual and team competitions will take place on the same day. 19 April will feature the rest of the competitions and the awards ceremony. The program of the festival will also include a contest of water tourism films and a concert of guitar poetry.

The water tourism festival Nemanskaya Vesna is a traditional opening of the sport and tourism season on the Augustow Canal. The popular sport event is held with a view to developing tourism, popularizing a healthy lifestyle and water tourism as a free-for-all and efficient means of physical, patriotic and environmental education, strengthening sport ties and sharing experience between international sport organizations.

The organizers of the festival include the Sport and Tourism Ministry, the Grodno Oblast Sport and Tourism Department, the National Tourism and Sport Union, other organizations.