Balkan Folklore Gathered Participants in the Fourth Edition of the Festival "Days of Balkan Culture, Folklore and Traditions" - Ohrid 2021
On 21.06. in Ohrid the fourth edition of the festival "Days of Balkan Culture, Folklore and Traditions" - Ohrid 2021 took place. The festival is organized for another year within the project "Preservation of intangible heritage in the field of culture and folklore of the Balkans", funded by funds from the Official Development Assistance of the Republic of Bulgaria.
Despite the complex circumstances of the pandemic, the festival managed to gather over 100 participants from Bulgaria, RS Macedonia and the Republic of Albania and become a real celebration of folklore, dance and singing traditions - a shared heritage of the Balkans.
For the first year in the jury was invited to participate the director of the State Institute for Culture under the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mrs. Snezhana Yoveva. 9 ensembles took part in the fair, as the participants from Bulgaria, the Republic of Albania and the hosts RS Macedonia enriched the program and showed that music and dance are strong unifying instruments and that they bring people together to celebrate and empathize.
During the visit of the Director of the State Institute for Culture in RS Macedonia, at the invitation and with the assistance of HE Angel Angelov, Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria to the Republic of Macedonia, working talks were held with representatives of Bulgarian associations in Ohrid, which develop cultural and social integration activities.
A working meeting took place in Skopje between the director of the Institute and the director of the Skopje Art Gallery Dr. Dita Starova Kerimi, initiated and organized by the director of the Bulgarian Cultural Information Center in Skopje, Mrs. Antonia Veleva. Possibilities to organize exchange exhibitions in Skopje and Sofia, respectively, on the occasion of the upcoming anniversary - 30 years since the celebration of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Bulgaria - were discussed.
For the purposes of cultural diplomacy of the Bulgarian Cultural Information Center in Skopje, the State Institute for Culture provided a poster phototype exhibition "Traditions and Folklore", albums and catalogs, presenting the rich art fund of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.