The Days of Polish Culture in Berdychiv celebrated its twentieth edition. Polish Tourism Organisation joined the undertaking to promote Poland’s tourist highlights.

Berdychiv is a city in central Ukraine and a former major trading centre. Despite changing geopolitical reality, moving borders and numerous wartime damages, it managed to maintain a multicultural tradition of respect for other nations and good relations with neighbors.

With Jewish residents once constituting about 80% of its population, the city features a magnificent fortified Carmelite monastery dating back to the seventeenth century plus the church of St. Barbara where Honoré de Balzac and Ewelina Hańska got married. No wonder, then, that borders proved to be no barrier for writer Joseph Conrad (born Józef Konrad Korzeniowski) who hailed from Berdychiv.

This type of multicultural ambience is precisely what distinguished this year’s Days of Polish Culture, along with Days of the City and Youth Days celebrated with it.

Representatives of sister cities - Andrzej Sitnik, Mayor of Siedlce, and Emilian Bera, Mayor of Jawor – arrived at the invitation of Vasyl Mazur, Mayor of Berdychiv. In Historical Museum the Vinnytsia-based Consulate Generale of the Republic of Poland presented an exhibition dedicated to Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who was also born in the area. In the Municipal Palace of Culture Polish Tourism Organisation (Polska Organizacja Turystyczna – POT) arranged an exhibition showcasing the 20 greatest tourist highlights of our country.

On the main street of the city the Notes de Vita theatrical ensemble staged the “Next stop: Poland” project, with POT’s promotional materials handed out to spectators. Last but not least, a refined opera production was staged in the city theatre, while the evening was crowned by the Polish Vołosi band performing in the main square of Berdychiv.