The event will be held in Ulyanovsk from 17 to 25 August for the sixth time. This year, representatives of 4 creative UNESCO cities from Germany will take part in the festival: Heidelberg (literature), Hannover and Mannheim (music), Berlin (design).

The festival program will allow Ulyanovsk residents to get acquainted with creators from creative cities of Germany, enjoy modern German culture, and also see all the diversity and openness of this European country. Among the participants of the festival will be not only native Germans, but also Ukrainian and Latin American women, who have been living in different German cities for many years. The festival will be attended by: curator of art projects from Berlin Marcela Villanueva, writer from Heidelberg Frank Barsch, vocalist and musical performer of the Luna&Lewis band from Mannheim Laura Volk, musical performer from Hannover Maria Kashina.

“At present, Germany is one of the key partners of the Ulyanovsk region, not only in the field of culture, but also in the fields of education, economy and investment. This festival is an example of how culture can have a beneficial effect on strengthening comprehensive international cooperation,” said Tatiana Ivshina, director of the Ulyanovsk Capital of Culture Foundation.

The idea of ​​this year's festival is to show the creative life of four German cities: Heidelberg, Mannheim, Hannover and Berlin, which since December 2015 have been partners of Ulyanovsk within the framework of the international UNESCO Creative Cities Network, where Ulyanovsk is represented in the "Literature" direction.

In recent years, the organizers of the festival have chosen the main venue for events in Ulyanovsk, which need attention. So in 2015 the festival was held in the calm historical Simbirsk quarter, and in 2016 in the Friendship of Peoples Park. This year, the main venue for the festival will be the May 1 House of Culture, which is located on the left bank of the Volga River in the Nizhnyaya Terrasa microdistrict. The May 1 House of Culture is one of the oldest cultural institutions in the city. It was opened in 1924, and in 1987 a new 4-storey building of the Palace of Culture was built next to the old building. Today, the House of Culture and the territory adjacent to it need to be rethought and revitalized.

“We believe that such cultural events are a way to draw attention to relevant places in the city with the help of culture and art, to activate the creative forces of citizens. The festival will allow experimenting with different formats, spaces and will provide an opportunity to collect feedback from the citizens about what they want to see in the cultural life of the Lower Terrace. The festival is a kind of dialogue about the future,” says Pasha Andreev, coordinator of the Ulyanovsk – UNESCO City of Literature program

During the festival, residents and guests of the city will enjoy the traditional German Film Week, music concerts, photo exhibitions, creative meetings and master classes.

The organizers of the Festival are the "Ulyanovsk - Capital of Culture" Foundation and the Directorate of the "Ulyanovsk - UNESCO City of Literature" program with the support of the Government of the Ulyanovsk Region and the Administration of the city of Ulyanovsk. The festival is funded by the German Embassy in Russia as part of the Days of Germany in Russian Regions project.

The partners of the festival are: Palace of Culture. May 1, OGAUK "Lenin Memorial", creative space "Kvartal", Department of Culture of the city of Heidelberg (Germany), program office "Mannheim - UNESCO City of Music" (Germany), Goethe Institute in Moscow, Ministry of Art and Cultural Policy of the Ulyanovsk Region, Department of culture and organization of leisure of the population of the Administration of the city of Ulyanovsk, Ministry of Education and Science of the Ulyanovsk region.

The full program of the festival is published here. Participation in the events is free, some require pre-registration.

Subscribe to the festival group on the Vkontakte social network to follow all the details - https://vk.com/germania73.

Also, all updates and details about individual events of the festival will be published on the websites ulkul.ru, ulyanovskcreativecity.ru.

For reference:

The festival of German culture "Days of Germany" was first held in Ulyanovsk in 2009 as part of the program "Managers in the field of culture of the Robert Bosch Foundation in the Russian Federation". Within the framework of this program, three cultural managers worked for 6 years in Ulyanovsk and implemented various Russian-German cultural projects in partnership with the Ministry of Art and Cultural Policy and the Ulyanovsk - Cultural Capital Foundation. Since 2015, the initiative to hold the festival has been supported by the Foundation and the Directorate of the Ulyanovsk – UNESCO City of Literature program.