Press releases

29 Oct 2019

Belarus to host Egyptian Culture Days on 29 October – 2 November

MINSK, 29 October (BelTA) – Egyptian Culture Days will take place in Belarus on 29 October – 2 November, representatives of the Belarusian Culture Ministry told BelTA.

The relevant agreement was reached as part of the work to implement the roadmap on advancing Belarus-Egypt cooperation in 2018-2019. The official delegation will be led by President of the Academy of Arts of Egypt Ashraf Zaki.

The folk troupe Ismailia will present its art as part of the Egyptian Culture Days. The concerts will take place in Minsk on 31 October and in Bobruisk on 1 November. The solemn opening ceremony will begin in the Belarusian State Philharmonic at 19:00 on 31 October.

Belarus-Egypt cooperation in cultural affairs relies on the intergovernmental agreement signed on 24 June 2004 and the memorandum of understanding the culture ministries signed on 15 January 2017. Belarus hosted Egyptian Culture Days in 2005 while Egypt hosted Belarusian Culture Days in 2007 and 2008.

Egypt was represented for the first time during the international art festival Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk in 2017. Representatives of Egypt took part in the international social poster contest Now! held in the National Center for Contemporary Arts of Belarus.

Belarus took part in the Cairo International Animation Forum in 2015 for the first time. In 2016 the animation film Vesna osenyu [spring in autumn] directed by Tatiana Kublitskaya of the Belarusian national film studio Belarusfilm won the best screenplay award. The TV hostess, reporter, and movie critic Passant Salama will take part in the 26th Minsk International Film Festival Listapad as a judge. In March 2019 the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts hosted a meet-the-artist event, during which students and professors of the Culturology and Sociocultural Activities Department met with the movie director Ramy El Gabry.

The National Library of Belarus and the Egyptian National Library and Archives (aka Dar El Kotob) established an exchange program in April 2015. Since then over 100 Belarusian publications have been sent to Egypt and ten publications have been received in return. A copy of the facsimile edition of The Book Heritage of Francysk Skaryna was donated to the Alexandria Library in 2017.