16 culture news headlines from 6 countries in December

The latest arts and culture news from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Armenia 

Minister of Culture met with the Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia. Armen Amiryan and Peter Switalski discussed the new policy on film production, book publishing and the application of new technologies, adopted by the Ministry. Head of the EU Delegation expressed his confidence that culture will be a bridge between Armenia and Europe which will serve as a stimulus for economic development. Ministry of Culture of Armenia

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Armenian culture exhibition took place in Poland’s KielceEdgar Ghazaryan, Armenia’s ambassador to Poland, noted that this exhibition allowed its visitors to gain more comprehensive insight on the rich cultural heritage of the Armenians as well as on the cultural similarities of the Armenian and Polish people. News.am

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Azerbaijan

UNESCO is interested in implementing projects with Azerbaijan. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, discussed the organization’s interest in implementing projects in Azerbaijan with Abulfas Garayev, tourism and culture minister. Officials exchanged views on the ways of expanding cooperation in the fields of culture and heritage. Azertag

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Culture minister: “Creative Georgia” forum became an opportunity to highlight Azerbaijani’s specifics. While visiting “Creative Georgia” Forum, organized by EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme, Abulfas Garayevtourism and culture minister, noted that the forum allowed “to inform the international community of Azerbaijan’s economic, cultural development, tourism opportunities, as well as what was done to develop creative industries.” He also highlighted Azerbaijan’s cooperation with the European Union in the fields of culture and tourism. Azertag

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Key European culture experts will teach management online. Online courses created by EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme will allow to quickly improve one’s professional qualifications in cultural management. Currently there are four available courses, and more will be added in future. Each course consists of 15 to 30-minute-long video—and there is a possibility to obtain a course completion certificate. Novosti.az

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Belarus

Citydog.by named the most influential curators of museums and art galleries in Minsk. Selected culture managers shared that even the most popular and important exhibition have an audience of approximately 3% of the Belarus capital’s population. All the experts featured in the article agreed that a robust cultural environment in Minsk is still to be formed. Citydog.by

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Alena Makouskaja shared the experience of successful project implementation in national culture. Chairwoman of the CSO World Association of Belarusians Backaŭščyna (or “fatherland”), founder and coordinator of the “Let’s Be Belarusians!”, campaign noted in a conversation with EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme that “culture is a system of coordinates, a set of values that are common to the national community, and that influence society’s assessment of certain events, the position of citizens.” She is confident that it is important to understand these values and use them, as the problem of many cultural projects today is a weak communication component. EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme

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Georgia
 
European experts identified the importance of development of “Creative Georgia”. During the Forum in Tbilisi, participants discussed, on the basis of cases of cultural initiatives and the EU’s experience, how cultural and creative industries can have a positive impact on innovation and development in Georgia and the region, Tbilisskaya Nedelya writes. According to culture experts, creative industries are that important because they make regions attractive for investments and professional staff. “The cultural and creative industries make up between 4.2% and 4.4% of the EU’s GDP and approximately 2.3% of the EU’s workforce,” Walter Zampieri, Head of the Unit for Culture and Creativity in the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission, underlined. Tbilisskaya Nedelya, newsgeorgia.geaspny.geEU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme

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Newsgeorgia.ge named top-5 projects from “Creative Georgia” forum. One of them, Musical Milk, was described by Tim Williams, the Head of EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme. According to him, scientists found that if cows are exposed to classical music, they produce more milk—and it turned out to be quite tasty. Another interesting projects are art space in Tallinn which united business and culture, a museum of broken relationships in Zagreb, a new brand Vismino which combines music and wine and alternative music from composer Koka Nikoladze. Newsgeorgia.ge, EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme

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“Creative Georgia” forum participants criticised Georgia’s education system. It was stressed during the forum that people of creative professions are unable to implement their projects in Georgia because of the low level of education at schools and institutions of higher education. The participants of the forum have also noted the need for copyright protection. Caucasian Knot

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Georgian youth shared business ideas during TeamLab Georgia workshop. 35 creative students from different universities were brought together to build up their business concepts. The main idea of the TeamLab workshop was to offer Georgian youth the opportunity of having the unique experience of creative collaboration with colleagues from various spheres, according to Ragnar Siil, EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme expert on creative industries. EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme, aspny.ge

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Moldova

Moldova’s delegation took part in “Creative Georgia” forum in Tbilisi. Andrei Chistol, State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, headed the delegation to this event, organized by EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme. Chistol noted that the Ministry of Culture of Moldova will prioritize the development of cultural and creative sectors, will work on the harmonization of the national legislation for the needs of these sectors. The official also announced that a national forum dedicated to creative cities will take place in Chisinau next May with the support of EU-Eastern Partnership Culture and Creativity Programme. Ministry of Culture of Moldova

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Days of German Film took place in Chisinau. Five movies were shown from 9 to 11 December—three for adult audience and two for children. The festival was organized by the “Akzente” cultural center with the assistance of German Embassy to Moldova and Goethe Institute in Bucharest. Moldpres

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Ukraine

Culture expert explained how to develop a culture project sustainably. Dr. Lidia Varbanova stressed in an interview with Platfor.ma that cultural sector should establish stronger ties to the projects from such fields as education, science, business and technology. She also noted that independent cultural managers are happier than those who work in state institutions, even though there are more obstacles on their way to the implementation of their project.  Platfor.ma

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Culture experts on how culture life of Ukrainian cities developed in 2016. According to experts from Dnipro, Kharkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Uzhhorod, culture in Ukrainian cities is becoming more vibrant, and their cultural identity is being shaped clearly. However, all the experts complained about the lack of financing for culture projects and cooperation between state and creative industries, weak market of art and institutional framework. The Ukrainians 

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Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on the ban of anti-Ukrainian books. 237 Ukrainian MPs voted for the draft law proposed by Ukraine’s vice PM Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda writes. Now it is prohibited to publish and distribute books that contain calls for termination of Ukraine’s independence, violent change of constitutional order and assaults on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.  Ukrainska Pravda

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