"Days of Belgorod in Belgrade": How Belgorodia was presented in Serbia

 The Institute of Serbian Language and Communications, based at the Shukhov Belgorod State Technical University, held the festival-forum "Days of Belgorod in Belgrade" in Serbia on December 11-12. This is the second meeting in this format: the first event took place in 2019. The Institute of Serbian Language and Communications actively participates in international relations and makes its own contribution to the development of friendship between the fraternal Russian and Serbian peoples.

Program and participants

 "Days of Belgorod in Belgrade" is a good way to familiarize those who live in the Serbian capital with the Russian city of the same name, to form a positive image of the university, the city and the region abroad, to unite long-standing partners, BSTU graduates and students , as well as to attract  the new ones. The venue for the festival-forum was provided by the Russian Center of Science and Culture, the "Russian House".

The main organizer, Director of the Institute of Serbian Language and Communications Victoria Ryapukhina, noted that the "Days of Belgorod in Belgrade" aroused great interest among the Serbian public and also attracted the attention of local media. During the two days, the festival was visited by several hundred people. The program was arranged so as to cover all the age groups and many thematic areas.

"Our event was supported by many famous and respected people, officials and organizations. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Serbia to the Russian Federation Mr. Momčilo Babić sent us a welcoming address, where he congratulated the organizers and participants on the opening of the festival-forum and noted that our initiative is an excellent example of how to present a Russian region in Serbia and a good experience for presenting Serbian regions and cities in Russia,” noted Victoria Ryapukhina.

 The opening ceremony was attended by the Advisor to the Governor of Belgorod oblast Dmitry Razumov, the deputy of the Belgorod City Council Nikolai Ryapukhin, Metropolitan and Archbishop of Vranje Pakhomiy, who gave a ceremonial speech.

The round table “Belgorod Borderland: Historical and (geo)political challenges and prospects” was attended by such academic stars as Dr. Milos Kovic, Dr. Sinisa Atlagic, Dr. Stevan Gajic and others.

 The plenary report on the historical mission of Belgorod as a fortress city was delivered by the head of the Department of Sociology and Management of  Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Mikhail Ignatov, which became the initiation of a lively discussion.

In addition, the scientific community in Belgorod at during the round table discussion  was represented by Konstantin Lobanov , a police colonel, head of the psychology and pedagogy department of I.D. Putilin Belgorod Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, doctor of political sciences.

A photo exhibition "Yesterday Belgrade. Today Belgorod..."

 Within the framework of the festival "Days of Belgorod in Belgrade" the photo exhibition "Yesterday Belgrade. Today Belgorod. NATO's Bloody Trail" was opened. It was first presented in March 2024 at the Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow.

 At the opening of the exhibition, an address was made by Rodion Miroshnik, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the crimes of the Kyiv regime.

 Here one could see the evidence of attacks on civilians in Belgorod oblast made by a documentary photographer, editor-in-chief of the magazine "New Regions of Russia" Sergei Venyavsky and photojournalists of the Serbian newspaper "Evening News", who were making photos in destroyed Belgrade in 1999.

 "Serbs in Belgorodia and in Russia": history through the eyes of contemporaries

 Perhaps the main event of the first day of the forum was the presentation of the book "Serbs in Belgorodia and in Russia”. A bilingual book is always a special phenomenon, but in this case the publication was the result of joint work by Belgorod researchers, historians and archivists and the State Archive of Vojvodina, the largest institution of its kind of national significance.

 The editor of the collection was Pavel Subbotin. The last few parts, covering the period from the 1980s to the present, were written based on the annals of cooperation with Serbian partners of BSTU. The translation work was made by Nemanja Vukcevic, associate professor of the Department of Theory and Methodology of Science at Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University.

 “It is important to note that the moderator of the presentation was the honorary guest from the Republic of Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina), professor of the Serbian language and qualified theologian Milana Babić, and the director of the Vojvodina State Archives, Nebojša Kuzmanović, and the famous writer and translator Ranko Gojković, spoke about the book. We worked on writing and publishing this book with the blessing of His Eminence Joann, Metropolitan of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, and His Holiness Porfiry, Archbishop of Peć, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovci and Patriarch of Serbia,” emphasized Victoria Ryapukhina.

An important moment of the festival-forum was the presentation of a letter of gratitude addressed to Dr. Kuzmanovich from Belgorod city administration for friendship, international cooperation and support of the city of Belgorod abroad.

Presentation of tourism projects

 On the first day of the festival-forum, the project "Rhythms of Forms: Ornaments that Define Space" was presented by the talented young architect and designer Anastasia Panina, a graduate of Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University and a master's student at the State University of Belgrade, as well as the Russian-Serbian School of Service and Tourism, which will start work on the basis of the "White Quarter" in 2025.

A bright part of the festival-forum was the presentation of tourism and hospitality of Belogorye, as well as dishes prepared according to the recipes of the OhoPripek! (baking surplus) project.

The creative part of the program of the first and second days was made even more beautiful with musical intermezzo performed by the graduates of Belgorod State Institute of Art and Culture Marjan Milosevic and Petar Velickovic. The young people came to Belgorod in 2014 as part of an evacuated group of Serbian students from Lugansk and became the first Serbian graduates of the above Institute.

 A photo exhibition "Belgrade through the eyes of a Belgorod resident"

 Talking about the second day of the festival-forum in Belgrade, Victoria Ryapukhina emphasized that the most exciting point of the program was holding a children's master class and a presentation of the  BSTU for young people.

"Right now, the campaign for accepting applications for training of foreign citizens within the framework of the Rossotrudnichestvo quota is in on, and many schoolchildren who have already decided to study in Russia are faced with the choice of a university. It is great that our volunteers were with us - Serbian graduates and BSTU students, who shared their experience and told about life in Belgorod. Now, when foreign media are filled with a negative agenda related to our region, it was especially important to show that Belgorod is still alive and developing, despite everything.

This was the subject of a photo exhibition by Belgorod photographer, journalist and writer Andrey Zakomorny, which we organized and opened the day before in another city, Novi Sad. In Belgrade, our photographer, journalist and writer presented an exhibition of his works entitled "Belgrade through the eyes of a Belgorod resident," emphasized Victoria Ryapukhina.

Thephoyos taken by Andrey Zakomorny during his previous stay in Serbia capture those little things that cannot escape the artist’s keen eye and that give the city its uniqueness, although locals usually just pass by.

 Andrey called on those who live in Belgrade to look closely at the photographs, remember what a beautiful and amazing city they live in, and try to look at familiar urban landscapes through the eyes of a traveler from a city with a similar name.

 Science, Faith and Creativity

 The program of the second day of the forum included a youth round table “Orthodox Bioethics: Between Faith and Science,” which brought together future and current doctors, theologians, and philosophers.

"This is a fairly new and rare trend of scientific thought in Serbia, so it was very important for us to present the advanced ideas of Russian practice in this area. The lecturer and moderator was a long-time friend of our Serbian center, Mr. Nenad Boykov, who will soon defend his dissertation on this very subject," noted Victoria Ryapukhina.

The festival ended with the presentation of the book in Serbian, “The Sky of Our Life,” by Metropolitan Ioann of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, which was translated by a graduate of the Belgorod Orthodox Theological Seminary with a missionary focus, the head of the Belgorod branch of the Pan-Orthodox Society “Reverend Justin of Celi and Vranje,” the editor-in-chief of the magazine “Iskon,” and an employee of the Vranje Eparchy , Mr. Nenad Boykov. The presentation included an official address by Bishop Ioann and Bishop Pachomius, who had come from Vranje specifically to support people living  in Belgorod. The presentation was moderated by a graduate student of BSTU, Mr. Liljana Chumura, a professional sociologist. The book was discussed by the popular and beloved by Serbs archpriest-stavrophor Dr. Miloša Vesina, professor, an Orthodox psychologist and lecturer.

At the end of the evening, the winner of numerous awards, the ethnic group “Zlatnik”, performed Russian and Serbian songs.

Summing up, Victoria Ryapukhina noted that, although the delegation from Belgorod was quite small due to objective reasons, and the festival itself was implemented on a voluntary basis, the “Days of Belgorod in Belgrade” were held at the highest level, worthy of representing an entire region abroad.

The forum received high praise from representatives of Rossotrudnichestvo and the Russian embassy in Serbia and, most importantly, laid the foundation for further development of cooperation with old and new Serbian partners for BSTU, the city and the region.

The organizers of the "Days of Belgorod in Belgrade" thank the Belgorod Metropolitanate and the State Archive of Vojvodina for the opportunity to distribute free of charge about 100 copies of each of the presented books, and also Belgorod Oblast Tourism Department for consulting support, provision of printed and souvenir products and the Belogorye confectionery factory for donating tasting sets of products. From the Serbian side, great assistance was provided by the State Belgrade School of Service and Tourism in cooperation with patrons, as well as AD Planinka.

 Photo by Alexandra Charskaya