On the Day of Unity of the Peoples of Russia and Belarus, a video conference connected the Astrakhan Regional Branch of the Russian Writers' Union with the Minsk City and Brest Regional Branches of the Union of Writers of Belarus.
Representing Astrakhan were Yury Shcherbakov, Chairman of the Astrakhan Regional Branch of the Union of Writers of Russia; poet Boris Sverdlov; and prose writer Marina Parenskaya. Representing Minsk were Irina Matyas, Director of the Yakub Kolas Literary Museum; Mikhail Pozdnyakov, Chairman of the Minsk City Branch of the Union of Writers of Belarus; poet Anatoly Avrutin; and Olga Bogushinskaya, Head of the Theater of Poetry. Representing Brest were Tatyana Demidovich, Chairperson of the Brest Regional Branch of the Union of Writers of Belarus; and poets Natalya Kondrashchuk (Nizhnik) and Vasily Borisuk.
The occasion for the meeting was not only the shared holiday of the two states but also the publication in Minsk of the collective anthology "True to the Great Victory", which features poems and prose by 22 authors from Astrakhan and Minsk. Belarusian writer Olga Bogushinskaya served as the editor and compiler of the new publication.
The participants of the video conference unanimously expressed their desire to continue fruitful creative contacts and develop new joint projects. This is especially relevant given that Astrakhan and Brest are linked by sister-city relations.
Photos: Astrakhan Regional Branch of the Russian Writers' Union.