Lukashenko: festival in Alexandria turned into event of national and international scale
The big national holiday – the Kupala Night Festival (Alexandria Gathers Friends) – continues in the small homeland of the President of Belarus. As is traditional, the fest was attended by Head of State Aleksandr Lukashenko on July 6th.
Addressing fellow countrymen, participants and guests of the holiday, the President noted, “July has become a kind of Slavic month, a cultural month. From this wonderful holiday in our Alexandria we move to one of the greatest festivals in the world: the Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk. Everywhere we are talking about Slavic people. Although today both the holiday in Alexandria and our Vitebsk festival have long ceased to be purely Slavic events.”
The Head of State drew attention to the fact that our friends from more than ten countries have arrived in Alexandria, and representatives of over thirty states will come to the Slavianski Bazaar International Festival of Arts.
“It all started from here. In those ancient times, the Dnieper River was the road along which our ancestors moved from the south. Here they saw their lives as more free. They were probably harassed there. Our ancestors moved here, to the north, from near Kiev, from the Danube River. Therefore, the Dnieper River is a special river. It’s good that our generation has revived this wonderful tradition: to gather on the banks of the ancient Dnieper on these Kupala days. For fifteen years now, we have been gathering in this picturesque corner of Belarus to feel the connection of times for a moment. In such a short period of time, we’ve created a festival that has turned from a small cosy holiday into an event of national and international scale. Nevertheless, it has not lost its name of a cosy holiday. It really has its special atmosphere. We’ve preserved the comfort. Our festival has become a place of attraction for creative people and true fans of the original Slavic culture from all over Belarus and from other countries,” the President underlined.
