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VITEBSK, 8 July (BelTA) – Vitebsk opens the 20th International Slavonic Bazaar Festival today. An official opening ceremony will take place at the Summer Amphitheater, BelTA has learnt. Nearly 5,000 guests from 27 countries are expected to partake in the forum. The program of the Bazaar will include almost 70 projects. With old traditions in place, the festival will be filled with a new content. The festival will provide meetings with art masters from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, give an opportunity to enjoy song contests, an exciting cinema program and fascinating theater shows. The Slavonic Bazaar will act as launching platform for the Festival of Arts of the Belarusians of the World slated for 9 July. The opening ceremony will be attended by well-known celebrities such as Nikolai Baskov, Dima Bilan, Valery Leontyev, Taisia Povaliy, Patricia Kaas, Didier Marouani & Space, Eurovision 2011 winners Ell/Nikki from Azerbaijan as well as Belarusian stars: Pesnyary and Syabry ensembles, Nikolai Skorikov, Irina Dorofeyeva, Anastasia Vinnikova, Daniil Kozlov and others. Theater goers will charmed away by a bunch of wonderful plays by the Yanka Kupala National Academic Theater, Moscow’s Mayakovski Academic Theater, Amerist Studio, Roman Viktyuk’s Theater and many more. As regards the cinema program, the festival will be attended by established cinematographers of Belarus, Russia and Lithuania. The audience will see Belarusfilm’s Ryzhik in Wonderland, Russian cartoon Masha and the Bear, Gytis Luksas’s Vortex (Lithuania). The closing ceremony of the festival will take place on 14 July.