Национальная библиотека Республики Карелия

The National Library of Karelia has joined for the 12^th time the All-Russian event BiblioNight 2023. The President of our country has declared this year the Year of Teacher and Mentor, and all events held in the framework of the Year are dedicated to enhancing the prestige of the teacher’s profession. The BiblioNight 2023 at the National Library of Karelia was not an exception, because it aimed at supporting reading and the social significance of literature as an essential part of the national culture.

This year, the BiblioNight took place on the All-Russian Library Day and in an anniversary year: in 2023 the library celebrates it’s 190^th birthday. Today, library is not only a book storage but also the biggest informational, cultural and educational centre of the region.  

The program of the BiblioNight contained creative meetings, interactive events, intellectual games, workshops, excursions, book and painters’ exhibitions, and of course reading.

According to a tradition, it was preceded by BiblioTwilight – a series of events prepared specifically for a children's audience. The program included different game programs, a workshop by painter and designer Elena Fedorova, a fabulous workshop by Lina Kosheleva, illustrator of Kipinä children's magazine, and a meeting with Grigory Suzi, teacher, historian and winner of the Teacher of the Year 2021 Contest.

BiblioTwilight changed into BiblioNight, and it’s program started with a performance of legendary folk band Skylark. The special style of performing folk melodies made it possible to convey to the listeners the powerful energy, the spirit of life of Karelian and Finnish folk.

At that time, a meeting of poetry lovers was held in the conference room, at which members of the SoNeT literary club spoke.

Visitors of BiblioNight learned about the heroes of the Karelian forest and specially protected Red List species at a meeting with a scientist and blogger Tatyana Berdasheva. Tatyana Berdasheva is a Senior Researcher at the Museum Agency of the Leningrad Region, a curator of the Runola project implemented to popularize the Karelian heritage and an ethno-blogger. She told the guests about the forest spirits and creatures living in the distant forest country of Metsola. At the meeting at BiblioNight, the history of the creation of the ethno-calendar Mythology of Metsola was also discussed.

Late in the evening, as part a of the BiblioNight at the National Library of Karelia, a reading of excerpts from the novel Solnce dyshit kholodom (Eng. The Sun Breathes Cold) by Y. Zhemoytelite took place.

The BiblioNight 2023 was rich in excursions. Visitors learned all the most interesting things about the main and most high-tech library of Karelia, which unites the world of books and art, science and culture, on an excursion Time Compressed in Books.

Employees of the Rare Books Department invited everyone to go on a great literary journey through the pages of the rarest, oldest and most unusual book editions of the 16^th - 19^th centuries stored in the library.

Historical journeys did not end there. The most inquisitive went on excursions of the Read Streets Like Books project. This time, with the help of books and photographs, the participants restored the historical appearance of the Onega embankment.

During all the BiblioNight, its participants could test their knowledge while participating in a quiz lesson on literary geography.

The online program of the BiblioNight included a video story by the author and compiler of the collection "History in Faces. Cultural and Educational College. XX century” Nadezhda Gribanova; she told about teachers and graduates of the Karelian College of Culture and Arts named after the Hero of the Soviet Union A. M. Lisitsyna.

The National Library of Karelia expresses its deep gratitude to our friends and partners, without whom this holiday would not be so bright, cheerful and crowded!