500 years together

The guests of the event were: The President of Federal National and Cultural Autonomy of Russian Gypsies Nadezhda Demetr, Vice presidents of Federal National and Cultural Autonomy of Russian Gypsies Vladimir Kutenkov, the head of national cultural autonomous Gypsian Society of Belgorod Region Arthur Kwik and his assistant Laura Romanovskaya, member of Union of Russian Artists Yuriy Danchenko, the artist of Belgorod State Philarmonia, chief conductor of concert brass orchestra Yuriy Merkulov, the writer, member of the Union of Russian Writers Irina Chernyavskaya and the granddaughter of art director of world’s only gypsy theater “Roman” Nikolai Slichenko, – Rada Slichenko.

Svetlana Ostrikova, vice principal for culture and education of BelSU, greeted the audience.

“Today is the day of embraces, and our meeting is not a fluke, because we are friendly nations. We are happy to receive such wonderful guests”, – she said.

The guests told students about the gipsy nation and its peculiarities. The President of Federal National and Cultural Autonomy of Russian Gypsies Nadezhda Demetr suggested to abandon stereotypes, to look at positive qualities of every nation and said that gypsies had always had many arts and crafts.

Students got acquainted with Gypsyan language which has many loans from Russian. They’ve also taken part in word-building game: created Gypsian words using Russian prefixes.

The guests told about gypsies’ art, reminded the students about singers, musicians and dancers; remembered famous scientists and war heroes who was ethnic gypsies. They’ve also performed national songs and dances for the audience.

Such events were organized in many Russian cities: Moscow, Vladimir, Pskov, Smolensk, and now, – in Belgorod. As a result, all participants concurred that every nation has its own outstanding people.