The celebration of the 1150th anniversary of Smolensk are in progress

The month of celebrations of the 1150th anniversary of Smolensk began on August, 25 with the opening ceremony of the film festival "Golden Phoenix" and continued on August, 30-31 and September, 1.

On August, 31 there was the city street arts festival, which brought together professionals and amateurs from different areas of art, from modern street dance to youth fashion design, from street theatre to graffiti, from modern street music to street basketball and fire-show.

The main event of the festive Saturday was the evening performance. In Lenin Square Smolensk people could enjoy the concert of the Russian pop stars: Vladimir Presnyakov Jr. and Valeria.

The performance of the pop stars was one of the gifts for our countrymen on the anniversary of the city. After the concert there was a laser show, which was broadcasted on the stage screen and accompanied by a story about the history of our ancient city.

At the end of the last summer day there were colorful fireworks.

The most notable events of the celebration on September, 1were the air-balloon festival, held in our city for the first time, and a great motor freestyle show, held at the "Spartak” stadium.

In the morning many Smolensk people saw huge colorful balloons, unusually decorating the sky above Smolensk. Then, starting from 6 p.m., the festive events moved on to the central square of Smolensk.

Hundreds of people of Smolensk, surrounding Lenin Square, witnessed all the stages of preparation of balloons to fly. After some time, six balloons were majestically swinging over the center of festivities.

In the evening, three balloons rose into the sky. The rest were left on the ground to show Smolensk people a colorful aeronautic show "Night Glow" in the dark. There is not much to add but the fact that the audience was entertained by the skillful balloonists from Tula, Velikie Luki, Feodosia, Stavropol and Moscow. Simultaneously with the Air-Balloon Festival there was motor freestyle gala-show at the "Spartak" stadium. The stunt riders demonstrated the audience their skills of controlling the motor- and quadro-cycles.

Individual stunts were shown by the winners of international competitions and shows: Alexei Aisin, Anton Smirnov and Vanni Odder (Italy).

The theater and cinema actor Alexey Ogurtsov hosted the program. The music accompaniment to the motor freestyle show was provided by the Moscow performers Ars Kaverin, Igor Tukhvatov and Dominica.