Press releases
Belarus Events Calendar: JANUARY 2024
2023/2024 Belarus Christmas fairs
Christmas fairs attract visitors with holiday spirit and cozy atmosphere. They are open from December till the mid-January all over the country.
Christmas fair in Akvarel ecopark
Here you can buy exclusive souvenirs and presents, handmade gifts and unusual treats. The fair offers an interesting program "New Year adventures with gnomes" and a stroll around the grounds of the residency of Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden.
When: 8 December 2023 – 14 January 2024 (Fri, Sat, Sun)
Where: Akvarel ecopark, south of Novoselki agrotown, Maryina Gorka, Minsk Oblast
Grodno Winter fest
Grodno Winter fest in on Sovietskaya square in Grodno provides a good opportunity to take pictures next to the region’s main Christmas tree, pop in shops of handmade souvenirs, enjoy winter activities and entertainment. The local food-court presents various dishes from different countries (such as tacos, Luleh kebab, trdelnik) and offers delicious drinks at the winter bar to warm up.
When: 8 December 2023 – 7 January 2024
Where: Sovietskaya Square, Grodno
Christmas fair in Minsk
The Christmas fair near the Sports Palace always gathers thousands of citizens. Here you can buy trees and pines, holiday souvenirs and gifts, sweets and bakery. Guests can enjoy the assortment of Belarusian, Russian, Armenian and Uzbek cuisine, and take pictures with Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden.
When: 16 December 2023 – 14 January 2024
Where: Sports Palace, Minsk
Winter fest at the Bolshoi Theater, Belarus
A magical town near the Bolshoi Theater will feature: Grandfather Frost’s office, a gift wrapping factory, a craftsman’s market and a food court. Here everyone can find unique presents, try out various cuisines, keep warm with Christmas drinks such as mulled wine, grog and other warm drinks made to special recipes.
When: 22 December 2023 - 7 January 2024
Where: Bolshoi Theater of Belarus, Parizhskaya Kommuna Square, Minsk
PetShop Market Christmas fair
PetShop Market Christmas fair at Dinamo sports complex brings together pets and everyone who loves them. Here you can purchase food and other goods for any pet at a nice price, visit a dog restaurant and a bar, participate in costumes competition, and enjoy local food court’s offers.
When: 13 January 2024
Where: Dinamo sports complex, 23 Dauman Street, Minsk
Christmas and New Year in Belarus: From preparations to celebrations
With the onset of winter, the holiday season is in the air. In Minsk, an 18m Christmas tree on Independence Square will be the first to be decorated with balloons and garlands by 1 December, and by 8 December, the country's main Christmas tree will be installed on Oktyabrskaya Square. This year, the green beauty will be 30m high, and it will be decorated with multi-format balls, openwork milled toys and a pixel grid. All in all, the city will have 27 elegant Christmas trees. With the upcoming 2024 being the year of the Green Wooden Dragon, the colors of the jewelry are green, blue, red, gold, silver and snow white.
Until 12 December, the Bolshoi Theater of Belarus will be running the family contest "New Year's Theatrical Decoration". This season, its participants make a Christmas tree decoration themed around theater and music. The winners will be announced on 26 December before the performance "The Story of Kai and Gerda (The Snow Queen)".
The 20th nationwide charity event Our Children starts on 15 December. It draws attention to the problems of children who are in difficult life circumstances, and is designed to provide them with assistance and also to reward the most deserving, talented children who have excelled in education, sports, and civic life.
Holiday season exhibitions, quests and workshops
Traditional Belarusian Costume exhibition at the National Art Museum
The Belarusian "anthology of beauty" features about 90 folk costumes of six ethnographic regions of the country. The large-scale exhibition has been first put together at the National Art Museum as part of the annual campaign "September Night". It showcases almost 1,000 exhibits: folk clothes, household utensils, sketches and archival photographs that reflect the vivid regional and local features of the folk costume, both female and male. The exhibition also presents pieces of traditional Belarusian weaving, graphics, Belarusian fine art.
When: 9 September – 10 January 2024
Where: National Art Museum of Belarus, 24 Karl Marx Street, Minsk
New Year’s quest Pranks of the Old House in Mikhail Savitsky Gallery
The Minsk-based Mikhail Savitsky Art Gallery invites you to immerse yourself in the New Year mood and feel like the main character of the Home Alone movie. During the exciting adventure the guests will have to learn about Pranks of the Old House. As part of the process they will be transported to the 19th century when the famous collector Yuri Kobylinsky lived in the manor. To fulfill the tasks, the guests will have to meet the Keeper of the Keys and find out why she needs a magic key. They will have to visit the front drawing room and the small drawing room, the library, the study, look into the artist’s studio and solve riddles of the old house.
When: 19 December 2023 – 19 January 2024
Where: Mikhail Savitsky Art Gallery, 15 Svobody Square, Minsk
Christmas at the National Art Museum: Exhibition "…To the glory and praise of the Lord…"
Icons, manuscripts and early-printed books, altar paintings and sculptures, handicraft, molding pieces of the 17th - 19th centuries… Dated and signed works from Belarus’ largest sacral art collection are featured at the exhibition "…To the glory and praise of the Lord…" at the National Art Museum (15 out of the 37 recently restored exhibits are on display for the first time). Most artists preferred to remain anonymous as they saw their work just as a way to serve the worship of God. On display are icons with all kinds of notes and photos depicting the backs of the icons, usually hidden from the eye of viewers.
When: 1 December 2023 – 28 January 2024
Where: National Art Museum, the Exhibition department, 24 Karl Marx Street, Minsk
Christmas at the Wańkowicz Estate
During the most magical period of the year, the Wańkowicz House, a 19th-century estate turned into museum, will show visitors how Christmas was celebrated by the nobility, intellectuals, artists, and musicians a century ago. There was a time when the estate was frequented by a close relative of the house owner, Edward Wańkowicz, composer Stanisław Moniuszko, as well as playwright, writer, creator of the first Belarusian language theatrical work (the comic opera Idyll) Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich. In addition to studying the museum exposition, visitors will be able to take part in a master class to make an original New Year tree decoration.
When: 6 December 2023 – 13 January 2024
Where: Wańkowicz House, 33a Internatsionalnaya Street, Minsk
New Year in the Soviet Style exhibition
Visitors to the Minsk History Museum will be able to travel back into the Soviet period and find out how Minsk celebrated New Year in the second half of the 20th century. The museum recreated a Minsk apartment of the 1950s, a homely atmosphere and urban spaces using installations-photozones featuring household items, paintings and graphic works, collections of postcards, and Christmas tree decorations from the 1940s–1980s. City landscapes, landmarks, cozy courtyards are presented on the canvases of Vasily Sumarev, Viktor Evseev, and Boris Arakcheev; the exposition is complemented by watercolors, lithographs and linocuts by Grigory Vitkovsky, Anatoly Tychina, Semyon Gerus, and Ivan Protasenya.
When: 7 December 2023 – 4 February 2024
Where: Exhibition hall of the Minsk History Museum, 17 Rakovskaya Street, Minsk
History Through New Year Toys exhibition
The exhibition features New Year tree decorations from the huge collection of Natalya Kovaleva that totals over 5,000 items. Vintage handmade glass balls, cotton figures and holders, Christmas angels and fairy-tale characters... The exposition features unusual items from various periods. For example, toys made in the late 1930s are remarkable for their “elaborate shapes, great attention to detail, and hand-painted faces”. Visitors will learn that during wartime hand-painted light bulbs were often used instead of balls, and garlands were made of thin copper wire, colored paper or foil.
When: 14 December 2023 – 14 January 2024
Where: Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War History, 8 Pobeditelei Avenue, Minsk
New Year Toys, Candles and Crackers exhibition in Gomel
The Palace of the Rumyantsevs and the Paskeviches will immerse visitors into a holiday mood using New Year toys, candles and crackers. This is a miniature winter world populated by porcelain kids skiing and skating on fluffy snowy hills, funny little men, elegant young ladies, forest animals and amazing inhabitants of the deep sea, surrounded by a garden of sparkling vegetables, fruits, flowers and, of course, balloons of different shapes and sizes. The exhibits are New Year toys of the 1930s-1980s from the collections of the palace museum, made from glass, cardboard, wood, plastic, cotton wool, foil...
When: from 21 December 2023
Where: Palace of the Rumyantsevs and the Paskeviches, 4 Lenina Street, Gomel
Concerts, performances, shows
‘Journey to the Father Frost’s Estate’: New Year's train service to Belovezhskaya Pushcha
Experiencing a winter fairy tale to the rhythmic sound of a train rushing into the distance… This kind of entertainment is offered to children and adults on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve 2024. The destination is the estate of the Belarusian Father Frost in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The distance from Minsk to Brest is over 350km, the travel time is about 10 hours. A rich program awaits guests. In addition to visiting the estate of the main forest sorcerer, they will see the Snow Maiden's Tower, the Magic Mill, visit the Alley of Signs of the Oriental Calendar, Skarbnitsa - the Museum of Father Frost's Gifts, and will also be able to make secret wishes on the glade of the Twelve Months or on the magic throne.
When: 8 December 2023 – 13 January 2024
Where: Minsk – the estate of the Belarusian Father Frost
New Year’s fairy tale The Snow Maiden at the Belarusian State Circus
The Belarusian State Circus presents a new program ahead of winter holidays. The guests will be immersed into the New Year’s atmosphere while listening to the chords of the fairy tale The Snow Maiden. It is a story about an icy beauty who wants to find a real heart. Every character she meets helps her learn to feel different feelings - joy and fun, fear and anger, rage and love. Heroes of the fairytale circus program will be horse riders, gymnasts on pull-up bars, jugglers, equilibrists, a clown, as well as white and pink tigers and trained dogs.
When: 16 December 2023 – 14 January 2024
Where: Belarusian State Circus, 32 Nezavisimosti Avenue, Minsk
The country’s top New Year party 2023: New Year’s Time Machine performance
New Year’s Time Machine will send the guests of the country’s top New Year party 2023 from the big winter city into the most fantastic New Year’s fairy tale. According to the plot, Grandfather Frost and his granddaughter Snow Maiden check the last preparations of toy makers and the readiness of gifts to be sent to all children, but the Cunning Shnoops and his helpers break the New Year Time Machine and hide Grandfather Frost. And then Snow Maiden and her friend Mira turn for help to three superheroes - real Belarusian Transformers. In pursuit of Shnoops, the brave heroes together with the audience go on a journey. They will have to brave a deep underwater world, a cold ice cave, impassable sweet mountains and a dense magical forest...
When: 23 December 2023 – 5 January 2024
Where: Palace of the Republic, 1 Oktyabrskaya Square, Minsk
Christmas Jazz at Nesvizh Castle
On Christmas eve, visitors to Nesvizh Castle will be able to soak up the festive atmosphere of the residence of the Radziwill princes and indulge in a jazz concert performed by the Finberg National Academic Concert Orchestra of Belarus under the baton of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Maxim Rassoha. The audience will gather in the Theater Hall of Nesvizh Castle to listen to a moonlight serenade, sugar blues and a Christmas drinking song, and to see the blue sky and the enchanting blue moon. The highlight of the Christmas Jazz concert will be the performance of popular classical music arranged in a jazz style.
When: 5 January, 15:00, 17:00
Where: Theater Hall, Nesvizh Castle, 2 Zamkovaya Street, Nesvizh
The Crystal Slipper children’s show in Nesvizh Castle
The Crystal Slipper fairy tale staged by the Belarusian State Philharmonic Society will tell the story of Cinderella who dreams of attending a royal ball and meeting a handsome prince. Suddenly her dream comes true! This will be a spectacular and dynamic performance that will tell kids that kindness, patience and love will always prevail.
When: 6 January, 15:00, 17:00
Where: Theater Hall, Nesvizh Castle, 2 Zamkovaya Street, Nesvizh
Pierre Edel in Grodno
French singer Pierre Edel has became widely known thanks to his successful participation in the popular TV show The Voice in four countries. He has sung in duet with such celebrities as Garou, Mika, Kylie Minogue, Joe Lynn Turner (Deep Purple vocalist), Phil Spalding (Elton John’s bass player), Sergey Mavrin (Aria) and many others. In Grodno Pierre Edel will perform a program featuring legendary compositions from the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, songs of Joe Dassin, Édith Piaf, Elton John, as well as hits from his solo album - Time Machine.
When: 26 January
Where: Grodno Oblast Philharmonic Society, 17 Gornovykh Steet, Grodno
Christmas balls in Belarus
Children's Christmas Ball in Mir Castle
Mir Castle continues a good festive tradition by inviting ladies and gentlemen aged 6-12 to the Children's Christmas Ball during the winter vacations. Young participants of the event will not only learn court etiquette but also show their skills in ancient dances, enjoy games and make their wishes. Each child will receive a gift!
When: 6 January, 12.00
Where: Mir Castle, 2 Krasnoarmeyskaya Street, Mir, Grodno Oblast
Fairytale Ball at Bolshoi: 10th Anniversary of Marina Vezhnovets Ballet School
Marina Vezhnovets, Honored Artist of Belarus, prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater, founded a children's ballet school 10 years ago. The Fairytale Ball will bring together stars from different countries to mark the anniversary this year. Taking part in the event will be People's Artists of Belarus Irina Eromkina, Anton Kravchenko, Igor Artamonov, Honored Artists of Belarus Yuri Kovalev, prima ballerina of the Vienna State Opera, laureate of international competitions Irina Tsymbal, prizewinner of international competitions Irina Kolesnikova (Russia)... The event will also feature her former students who continue performing in the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet (St. Petersburg), Moscow State Academy of Choreography, Academy of Dance in Zurich (Switzerland), Belarusian State Choreographic Gymnasium-College. Among the famous students of the school are Vera Shpakovskaya, who became the fifth among the best young dancers in the world, and Maya Sivets, who won the International Dance Competition Tanzolymp in Berlin in 2020.
When: 8 January, 19.00
Where: Bolshoi Theater of Belarus, 1 Parizhskoi Kommuny Square, Minsk
Old New Year's Eve Ball at the Bolshoi Theater of Belarus
Festive atmosphere, fascinating chords of eternal classics, secular talk and entertainment of the 19th century - all this awaits the guests of the ball at the Bolshoi Theater of Belarus. The tradition to celebrate the old New Year in a company of favorite artists was born in 2009. Since then it has only been growing in popularity. The event opens with the Russian ball featuring polonaises, contradances, waltzes and polkas, and is followed by the Vienna Ball - a free dance program for everyone. Guests will be able to witness a knight's duel, take part in ballroom dancing workshops from leading ballet dancers and listen to their favorite opera soloists. A French quadrille will wrap up the festivities.
When: 13 January, 20:00 to 23:00
Where: Bolshoi Theater of Belarus, 1 Parizhskoi Kommuny Square, Minsk
Christmas Ball in Mir Castle
Dance workshops, live music, buffet, pleasant surprises... The magnificent residence of Princes Svyatopolk-Mirsky invites you to mark the old New Year in the atmosphere of the 18th century. According to the tradition, cavaliers and ladies dressed in exquisite outfits to match the secular society of that time gather in the Portrait Hall. The dress code is appropriate: a strict suit for gentlemen, an evening dress (preferably in the style of the 18th century) and flat shoes for ladies. Visitors will enjoy live instrumental music, small talk, old-fashioned board and active games.
When: 13 January, 20.00.
Where: Mir Castle, 2 Krasnoarmeyskaya Street, Mir, Grodno Oblast
Christmas Ball at the Michal Kleofas Oginski Estate Museum
The Christmas Ball in the Michal Kleofas Oginski Estate Museum in Smorgon District is about to kick off the winter ball season. Ladies in ball gowns and gentlemen in tuxedos are welcome at the ancient residence on Saturday evening. In the glorious times of the Oginski estate, which was called “the northern Athens”, balls were held all year round and were such an important part of noble life that all other leisure time was about to prepare for them. Guests of Zalesye are invited to spend an unforgettable time in the interiors of the estate on the eve of the old New Year - to enjoy dancing of the 19th century, communication with like-minded people and festive atmosphere.
When: 13 January, 20.00
Where: Michal Oginski Estate Museum, Zalesye, Smorgon District, Grodno Oblast
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