Penza, 30 June 2017. PenzaNews. Literary rally held in the Lermontov public garden in Penza on Friday, June 30, opened the 46th countrywide Lermontov festival.

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Residents of the city, who started to gather long before the rally began, could take a sit in the stalls in the centre of the square.

Before the official part, artists of the theatre "Voice of the Poet" recited poems. Visitors could buy handmade goods sold in alleys of the public garden. The goods included jewellery, souvenirs, clay toys including those made in Abashevo, as well as books and magazines.

Waiting for the rally to begin, some Penza citizens strolled around the public garden, took photos with members of the historical dance theatre "Compliment", who were dressed in costumes of the 19th century, others got acquainted with an open-air library organized within the framework of the project "Literary bivouac".

Among others, the Penza mayor Victor Kuvaytsev and the deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Penza region Yana Kuprina also became guests of the festival opening. They had a chance to see a rare edition of "Touch to the Original" delivered from Pyatigorsk specially for the festival.

The right to open the literary rally was given to the minister of culture and tourism of the Penza region Tatyana Kurdova, who noted that the “Tarkhany” State Museum-Reserve, where the events will continue on July 1, is visited by over 200,000 people annually, including 10,000 who are anxious to visit the annual literary festival dedicated to the poet.

"We celebrate this day in the Penza region on a par with any other public holiday because it is very important to us. Lermontov made the Penza region as well as Russia a part of the world literature," she said.

In turn, Victor Kuvaytsev noted during the rally that residents of the region should cultivate love to the great Russian poet as well as to the small motherland in the younger generation.

"As Lermontov's fellow citizens we can be proud nowadays that such a great person lived and worked in this land. We should cherish this memory and of course love and honour the poet," he noted.

Then, visitors of the rally took part in the ceremony of laying flowers to Mikhail Lermontov's bust. The first people to do so were the head of the city Valery Savelyev and Tatyana Kurdova. They were followed by Victor Kuvaytsev and Yana Kuprina, as well as by the head of the city’s Culture Department Vera Feigina and the deputy head of the regional Ministry of Culture Vladimir Karpov.

At the same moment, artists of the historical dance theatre "Compliment" began to dance to the accompaniment of the Popov municipal folk orchestra "Penza". The programme of the festival was followed by poems recited by local poets, in particular, by the winner of the Russian Lermontov's Prize Lidia Teryokhina.

At 20.00, the concert programme in the public garden will continue with performances of Penza creative groups, and at 22.00 it is planned to show a film about the poet under the open sky.