Penza, 4 February 2015. PenzaNews. Grand opening ceremony of the Year of Literature was held at the conference hall of the Lermontov regional library on Wednesday, February 4. Among the honored guests was governor Vasily Bochkarev, chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the region Ivan Belozertsev, as well as Evgeny Shilov, head of the Penza Department of Culture and Archive.

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The concert program began with a performance a waltz by Aram Khachaturian from ballet “Masquerade” by string quartet “Premiera.”

Afterwards, the audience saw the premiere of the movie “Literary province. World names”: it told about Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Kuprin, Alexander Radishchev, Vissarion Belinsky, Mikhail Zagoskin, Nikolai Leskov and other remarkable personalities that brought fame to the region and were included in the pantheon of Russian culture.

In his address to the audience, governor Vasily Bochkarev noted the official opening of the Year of Literature in the Penza region symbolically coincides with the 76th anniversary of the founding of the region celebrated on February 4.

“The President has proclaimed the year of 2015 the Year of Literature. Today, we must create interesting projects to promote reading. We must defeat procrastination and laziness,” said the head of the region.

Continuing the topic, the audience, mostly students, saw a presentation the regional program “PROchteniye,” and the campaign “Through the Penza region on a Librarymobile.”

The evening continued with poems and songs performed by the artists of the Lunacharsky Penza Regional Drama Theater, the poet Vladimir Yurakov, the vocal studio “Music continent,” the instrumental quartet “Guberniya,” and the city school students.

The library lobby displayed the festive installation, designed to express the meaning and importance of books and reading made by a famous Penza artist Sergei Uvarov.