Over 1,000 artisans and artists gathered at the XXI "Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk"

July 11, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. Over 1,000 artisans and artists have gathered at the XXI International Festival of Arts "Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk," a BELTA correspondent reports. Artists will be the first to start working at the forum today. Traditionally, the open-air art gallery "Vitebsk Vernissage" will be located on the pedestrian streets of Tolstoy and Suvorov near the Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. "This year, about 150 artists from all over Belarus will present their works on various themes and for every taste to Vitebsk residents and festival guests," the Vitebsk Center for Contemporary Art reported. The representation of folk masters and artisans is more numerous than ever, with about a thousand people gathered for the celebration. They will present crafts such as wood carving; painting on wood, fabric, glass; weaving products from local plant materials (vines, reeds, roots, birch bark, wood chips, bast, etc.); appliqué and inlay with straw; weaving on hand and loom machines; belt weaving; hand embroidery; lace making and knitting; pottery; making clay toys; blacksmithing; cooperage; making folk costumes in local and regional traditions while preserving traditional weaving and embroidery techniques; making souvenir ethnographic dolls in folk costumes; hand artistic knitting in Belarusian folk traditions; artistic leather processing; beadwork; and pysanka. Most masters and artisans will work at the "Zadzvinski Kirmaš" folk crafts and arts fair, the grand opening of which will take place on July 12 at the Cultural and Historical Complex "Golden Ring of the City of Vitebsk 'Dvina'." Visitors to the fair will be able to take master classes from potters, blacksmiths, ceramists, and also watch woodcarvers at work. Representatives of the latter craft, gathered from Belarus, Poland, and Russia, will take part in the plein air "A Look into the Past." The joint exhibition "Patchwork Mosaic" will bring together masters from Obninsk, Kaluga Region, and the "Phoenix" club from Polotsk. This year, the "City of Masters" has moved to a new location in Victory Park on Kalinin Street. The exhibition-sale has gathered mostly about 200 representatives of Houses of Crafts and clubs of folk masters of the Vitebsk region to present the traditional art of the Dvina region and the specifics of its regional development to the festival participants as fully as possible. On July 14-15, the unforgettable festival-competition of "vytinanka" masters "Azhurnyja Mary" will be held here. Participants will compete in seven nominations: traditional item, composition with traditional plots, silhouette cutouts, author's development of traditions, volumetric wytinanka (lamps, angels, etc.), collection of home works, and creative debut. You can enjoy the works of artists and artisans until the closing of the "Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk." -0-