2009 Programs and Events

U.S. Embassy in Minsk participated in the Minsk 16th International Book Fair Feb 11-15, 2009

On February 11-15, 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Minsk participated in the Minsk 16th International Book, which included 25 countries and had a total of more than 600 participants. Over the past 10 years, the Embassy has participated in the annual Minsk International Book Fair, an excellent forum at which to tell America’s story through a variety of published materials in traditional and electronic formats, including books, albums, catalogues, electronic journals, print publications and CD-ROMs. This year, the Embassy booth built upon its tradition of presenting the best of IIP’s products to introduce Book Fair visitors to the United States. It offered a selection of the most current and valuable information available about America’s cultural and political life in the form of print and electronic publications  produced by the International Information Programs bureau of the Department of State and the best of the Young Adults collection module, available in  Belarus thanks to the American Corners program. The IRC staff and the interns from the Belarusian State University introduced a few of the most authoritative web resources about the United States in English and Russian, including photo galleries, videos, web chats, pod casts, and blogs available on the America.gov. For those Book Fair visitors who wanted to test their knowledge in history and geography of the country, there were computer quizzes available on the laptops in the booth.  

Presentation of our Public Affairs programming areas on the first day of the Book Fair yielded an audience of over a hundred program participants.  PAO Caroline Savage and the PAS staff presented an overview of the Embassy’s public diplomacy programs aimed at finding common values, promoting American culture and preserving Belarusian heritage. Among them were the Early Instruments of Belarus documentary supported through the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation, the Embassy’s recent English Language Youth Poetry Slam, the Ambasovishcha 2008 DVD profiling the most popular annual program in support of Belarusian contemporary musicians, the “UNRRA: The Forgotten Mission” documentary film, information about our educational exchange programs, the Marc Chagall and the Bible book, and the Chernobyl photo album, among others.  The IRC staff made a separate presentation of America.gov’s Russian language resources for over a hundred of Minsk university and high school students.  

The Embassy booth and programming during 16th Minsk International Book Fair received accolades both from the Book Fair organizers and visitors. The Embassy received an Honorary Certificate at the official closing ceremony of the Book Fair. Over five days, a total of over 3, 857 copies of publications and electronic journals were distributed to Book Fair visitors.  A total of over 2,500 persons visited the Embassy booth with information queries about USA and the Embassy, and 452 people received small prizes from the IRC for their successes in the computer quizzes about the USA.