Days of Germany in Petrozavodsk will be conducted in autumn

  • Posted on: 10 November 2017
  • By: Ksenia

The distinguish feature of Petrozavodsk is that it regularly has the Days of different cities and countries that represent the history, culture, modern life of our foreign partners. The last autumn we hosted artists, masters, scientists from the Swedish sister city Umeå and German Tübingen.

This experience shows that Petrozavodsk citizens are interested in such activities.

This year - and again in the autumn we wait for German guests in the framework of the forthcoming Days of Germany in Petrozavodsk.

Over the decades it has formed a community of people and organizations with close ties with German partners and interested in acquaintance with the culture, traditions of modern Germany and, of course, in learning the language of Goethe and Schiller.

As before, the main sponsors of the Days of Germany are the Fund of Petrozavodsk, the City Administration, the Karelian Resource Center of Non-governmental Organizations, PetrSU, the Petrozavodsk Office of the West-East Society in Tubingen. This year the International Youth Center, the Culture Center "Premier", the Academy of Photography in Petrozavodsk, the Karelian branch of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation and other organizations joined the event as sponsors. The project is implemented with the support of the Embassy of Germany in Moscow and the General Consulate of Germany in St. Petersburg, the Mayor's Office of Tübingen, the society "West-East" in Tübingen, the Goethe Center in St. Petersburg.

The program of this year includes the performances of the musical group "Tim Anders und Co" from Berlin; the musicians who will take part in the discussion on what is important today for young people in the two countries; master classes by photographer Alexander Gonshior from Tubingen. The professors from the Department of German and French languages of the Institute of Foreign Languages of PetrSU will read open lectures about modern Germany and will conduct excursions "Memory and the Future" in the Museum of M. Kolbe. Teachers of the German language of the Petrozavodsk schools will hold training seminars, for all comers - a quiz "Do you know Germany?", films of Days of German in the cinema “Premiere” and "Agriculture" club. The novelty of the program is a contest of readers in German named "Listen, I'll read you!”.

The Days of Germany will be opened with the exhibition named "#HereIstand. Martin Luther, the Reformation and its results", which will be held at the Karelian National Library from the 7th to the 20th of September. Starting from the biography of Martin Luther, the exhibition tells about the times of the Reformation. What new ideas were in Luther's theology? What happened in Wittenberg in 1517? How did the new teaching spread? The exhibition is addressed to students, schoolchildren and those who are interested in European history.

This year one of the important events in Russian-German relations was the 14th conference of Russian and German sister cities in June in Krasnodar. Today, both sides give special importance to the preservation and development of ties between municipalities and regions of Russia and Germany, as precisely such direct contacts and people's diplomacy promote better relations between countries. And the upcoming Days of Germany in Petrozavodsk is a confirmation of the interest of city residents in communicating with the outside world and a contribution to the consolidation of good-neighborly relations.