Vytoki festival to kick off in Glubokoye on International Olympic Day (video)

The sports and cultural festival "Vytoki. A Step Towards the Olympus" will continue its June run in Vitebsk Oblast.

On 23 and 24 June 2023, the festival will be held in Glubokoye. This town in Vitebsk Oblast has a rich history and traditions, which will be in the spotlight of a press tour for national and regional media (meeting place is 40 Lenin Street, 12.00, the center for traditional culture). The press tour will be preceded by workshop on the cuisine typical for Glubokoye District and a tasting of products manufactured in Glubokoye District (by the local milk canning plant, the meat processing plant).

Journalists will go seeing the most iconic places of Glubokoye District. First, representatives of the media and participants of the festival will open the holiday "Olympic Day: Sport is for everyone!" in the Glubokoye District Children's and Youth Sports School (14a Gorky Street, 13.00). June 23 is the International Olympic Day and it is symbolic that Vytoki will start on this date.

Guests and participants of the festival will also tour the square of famous countrymen of Glubokoye District: Iosif Korsak (philanthropist, who financed the construction of the Carmelite Church, the Trinity Church, and others in Glubokoye); Yazep Drozdovich (writer, folklorist, archaeologist); Ignatius Buinitsky (founder of the Russian theater); Piotr Kozlov (Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General); Pavel Sukhoi (twice Hero of Socialist Labor, aerospace engineer and aircraft designer); Vatslav Lastovsky (writer, historian), Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (the father of Hebrew).

The participants of the press tour will visit the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the former complex of the Carmelite monastery, a site of historical and cultural heritage.

On the first day Vytoki will hold a seminar to discuss the topical issues of training athletes and ways to solve them with the participation of specialists from Belarusian State University of Physical Education and the Higher School of Coaches, specialists from sports organizations of Gomel Oblast (Glubokoye District Gymnasium, 34a Shkolnaya Street, 14.00). The Belarusian Olympic Academy will organize a workshop for teachers of general secondary education and preschool education institutions (Sukhoi secondary school No. 1, 43 Dzerzhinsky Street, 15.00). During the event, participants will get acquainted with the Olympic values and achievements of Belarusian athletes at the Olympic Games.

The Brigantina playground (Lomonosov Street, 16.30) will host an artistic interactive "Let’s play and draw together organized by the ArtHaos gallery.

The theme of the interactive event will be the Flower Walker. It will be drawn by a team of professional Belarusian artists, and children will color the surrounding area. Adults will help young artists.

The evening program of the festival will open with The Very Same Munchausen performance by the Belarusian Film Actor's Studio Theater (the town community center, 19.00). The organizers will present the production by the well-known creative team which has been a success in Minsk.

The first day will end with the screening of the famous sports film in an open-air cinema (20.30).

On the second day the leadership of the NOC of Belarus, the Sport and Tourism Ministry and the Vitebsk regional administration will tour the sports facilities of the district.

On June 24, the festival will continue with The Wealth of the Place event which will highlight the gastronomic preferences, customs and rites of Vitebsk Oblast (Tsentralnaya Square, 12.00). The Belarusian Brands fair will showcase the products made by Belarusian enterprises, including those developed with the participation of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (Tsentralnaya Square, 12.00).

The Olympic race will bring together about 500 children under 9 and will start at 12.40.

During the opening ceremony, the president of the NOC of Belarus is expected to present a certificate for Br100,000 to the district authorities on the development of physical education and sports in the region. The Olympic Quest will be held right after the opening ceremony. Everyone under the age of 14 will have an opportunity to take part in sports competitions, test their capabilities in various sports, do tasks and receive valuable prizes (from 13.00 to 17.00).

Sports sites will be set up in more than 30 sports: wrestling, boxing, biathlon, cycling, volleyball, basketball, athletics, shooting, weightlifting, table tennis, equestrian sport, karate, ice hockey, fire and rescue sports, archery, tennis, handball, kayaking and canoeing, mini golf, a break dance tournament, and others. The Emergencies Ministry plans to exhibit its stand. The MAZ-SPORTauto racing truck will also be brought to Glubokoye.

The festival will present its new location "Games of our Yard" (Central Square, 13.00). The event includes a number of yard games which were once very much popular. The organizers have prepared keepsake gifts for winners.

The final of the regional leg of the new intellectual and educational project "Vytoki. Quiz” (Central Square, 13.30) will feature teams from each district of Vitebsk Oblast. The project will continue in each of the cities hosting Vytoki 2023.

The entertainment program on 24 June will open with a show of apparel collections by Belarusian manufacturers, designers and entrepreneurs Rodnaye-Modnaye (17.00).

A new song lyrics contest "Poems about life important things" is this year’s novelty of the festival. The jury have already chosen the winner in Vitebsk Oblast. The winner’s lyrics will get music from a professional composer and the song will be performed at the festival.

The best young singers will be named at the main stage in Glubokoye (Central Square, 18.00). Laureates will get diplomas and prizes, and will take part in clinics from the country’s leading singers.

The highlight of the festival will be a concert featuring Belarusian artists (Central Square, 20.00), fireworks and a disco (23.00).


The sports and cultural festival "Vytoki. A Step Towards the Olympus” will continue in Kostyukovichi (18-19 August) and Borisov (25-26 August).

For reference

The first festival took place in 2021.

“Our festival has reached its goal. All its events had great success in different regions of the country,” President of the NOC of Belarus Viktor Lukashenko said.

According to the organizers, more than 206,300 people have taken part in the festival over the past two years.

The largest event of the festival was the Olympic quest - 64,200 participants.

Young participants of the festival received more than 35,000 prizes.

The biggest quest was a sports competition in Rechitsa, where as many as 7,000 children tried their hand in various sports.

The fashion show Rodnaye-Modnaye made part of the festival in 2022. More than 20 Belarusian enterprises got a chance to display their products as part of the project.

Vytoki is hard to imagine without a song competition, with more than 550 young singers taking part in it so far.

The organizers of the festival are the National Olympic Committee, the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, OOO Arthaos and OOO BelBrendAudit.