15 culture news headlines from 6 countries in January

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

Armenia

Polish and Armenian actors to stage cooperative show in Poland’s Poznań. The performance will feature Dominik Smaruy, script writer and actor of New Theatre, David Baroyan, Armenian musician and actor, as well as actor Gubert Kozhukhovski from Poznań.  The performance will partially be based on the personal stories of the three actors. News.am

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Painter brings colours of Armenia to Slovakia. Suren Mesropyan has presented his exhibition in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava. His “Colours of Life” exhibition is aimed at “bringing the colors of Armenia to Europe.” Mesropyan noted there were numerous similarities in cultural sphere between Slovakia and Armenia. Armenpress.am

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Presentation of Culture for Development Indicators. At first glance, a culture of "measurement" is not an easy task, but it can be extremely useful information for public managers to understand the situation, at least in industry. 

http://www.a1plus.am/1516523.html 

Azerbaijan 

Сulture minister meets Secretary-General of UNWTO. Abulfas Garayev discussed cooperation between Azerbaijan and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) with organisation’s Secretary-General Taleb Rifai. Garayev noted that there is a lot to be done within the “Year of international sustainable tourism”. Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan

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Report: creative economy has big potential on big screen. 1news.az spoke with filmmakers to look into how Azerbaijan’s cinema has been developing recently. Teymur Hajiyev, a founder of Fil Production company, noted that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan has distinctly different views on how the industry should be developed, therefore, filmmakers have only themselves to count on. He also noted that Azerbaijani nature could attract many foreign filmmakers—and that could be a major flow of funds. 1news.az

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Belarus 

Culture minister: Over 30 events to be arranged within the Year of Italian Culture. Boris Svetlov, Belarus’ culture minister, announced the plan of events during the joint conference with Ambassador of Italian Republic in Republic of Belarus Stefano Bianchi. Bianchi noted that the Year of Italian Culture will mark the 25th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Italy and Belarus. Ministry of Culture of Belarus

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Georgia 

Head of Creative Europe Desk Georgia named top challenges organization faces. Keti Shengelia stressed in a conversation with the EU-EaP Culture and Creativity Programme that creative industries in Georgia have potential which needs to be built up. However, in her opinion, this process is complicated by the fact that not everyone understands the role of culture in the socio-economic development of the country.” Therefore, Creative Europe is planning to organize an awareness-raising tour in Georgia. EU-EaP Culture and Creativity Programme

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EU presented report on culture’s role in socio-economic development of Georgia. The research based on method developed by UNESCO has been conducted by the EU-EaP Culture and Creativity Programme. This study has shown that freedom of speech and self-expression, access to information and protection of cultural heritage directly influence the socio-economic development. Levan Khetaguri, director of the Arts Research Institute of Ilia State University who took part in the research, noted that culture should be treated as a sphere for investments. The research has given plenty instruments to work on achieving this goal. Newsgeorgia.ge

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Moldova

Moldova to promote creative industries in cyberspace. Moldova’s creative industry needs to be promoted in order to evolve in a faster way and reach progress, Unimedia writes. As there are still few news portals specialized in culture at the national level, new ones should be created. In the case of creative industries, media should be culture promoter, raise awareness among the masses about the new trends in culture sphere. Unimedia, EU-EaP Culture and Creativity Programme

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Moldova, Belarus discussed cooperation in culture sphere. Monica Babuc, Moldova’s culture minister, and Sergey Chichuk, ambassador of Belarus to Moldova, focused on the perspectives of the bilateral cooperation development in the culture during their meeting. Monica Babuc pointed out that mutual culture days provide opportunity to intensify the favorable collaboration between libraries and artists. Ministry of Culture of Moldova

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Culture ministry held meeting on development of creative industries in Moldova. Monica Babuc, Moldova’s culture minister, noted that Moldova is already characterised by valuable creative potential. She referred to the Strategy of Culture Development “Culture 2020”, saying that the priority objective is the further development of cultural and creative industries. The same objective can be found in the Moldova-EU Association Agreement, Babuc noted. Ministry of Culture of Moldova

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Ukraine 

Report on indicators of culture’s impact in socio-economic development has been published. UNESCO and EU-EaP Culture and Creativity Programme organised the presentation of this report. Project managers and culture experts took part in the discussion. Ragnar Siil, the expert of EU-EaP Culture and Creativity Programme, stressed that cultural development has a direct influence on economy, education, ecology and other spheres of social life. Svitalna Fomenko, Ukraine’s deputy culture minister, underlined that the government is working on including cultural sphere into decentralization reform agenda. Ministry of Culture of Ukraine

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UNESCO helps to develop Ukraine’s creative economy. Cultural blog Conceptpublished a report on the presentation about Ukrainian creative economy perspectives organised by UNESCO and EU-EaP Culture and Creativity Programme. The presentation has shown that culture industry in Ukraine has great potential, as its growth amounted 4,04% in 2014. Meanwhile, only 1,33% present of Ukraine’s population works in culture industry—this figure could be increased. A very positive moment that Ukraine has the highest level of tolerance among all Eastern Partnership counties—82,9%. Concept 

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European experts explained how to apply for grant from “Creative Europe.” Platfor.ma online journal spoke with European culture experts about the best way to apply for grants provided by “Creative Europe” programme. Experts noted that this programme is often considered to be suitable only for big projects—that is untrue. Small NGO’s have all the chances to receive funding as well. However, in that case they should prepare a clear project proposal and find partners. Within “Creative Europe” programme, establishing partnerships is even more important than funding, experts stressed. Platfor.ma

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Culture ministry to create expert council on social morale. According to Ukrayinska Pravda, this council will be set to determine pornographic content, so that it would not endanger moral values in Ukrainian society. Ministry of Culture is planning to develop a system of financing the culture unions which would constitute the expert council. However, it should be determined which instruments would these culture unions need to function, as Svitalna Fomenko, Ukraine’s deputy culture minister, emphasized. Ukrayinska Pravda

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