Batumi to join UNESCO Creative Cities Network
Batumi will become the first city in Georgia to become a member of the UNESCO network. Photo: Jelger Groeneveld/CC BY 2.0.
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Georgia's Black Sea city of Batumi will join locations across all five continents that form the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, a project celebrating hotspots of creative industries and offering opportunities for experience-sharing and collaboration throughout the globe.
Eliso Bolkvadze, Georgia's internationally acclaimed pianist and the chairperson of the country's Parliamentary Committee on Culture, revealed the news after her meeting in Paris on Sunday as part of talks with Ernesto Renato Ottone Ramirez, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture.
Bolkvadze said talks with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation had been "concluded with success" and would see the coastline city become a member of the initiative that UNESCO says "offers unparalleled opportunities" for cities hosting active creative fields.
Bolkvadze, who was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace in 2015 and received a second mandate for the status earlier this year, said the membership would "strengthen our country's positions on the international cultural and tourist maps".
The Georgian pianist has also collaborated with the UNESCO through her work on Batumi Music Fest, an annual festival of classical music in the city, organised by her Lyra Foundation since 2013.
The Creative Cities Network involves seven categories of creative industries for cities looking to join: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts and Music. Submissions are reviewed by experts and member cities and ultimately approved by the organisation's director-general.
Internationally celebrated musical artists including pianists Alexander Gadjiev and Lydie Solomon and clarinetist Claudio Mansutti will join UNESCO Artist for Peace Elisso Bolkvadze and other acclaimed performers in this year’s Batumi Black Sea Music and Art Festival starting next week.
Internationally recognised musical artists, local performers and emerging young talent will make Georgia’s Black Sea city of Batumi the place to go for classical music enthusiasts during the Batumi Music Fest in early September.
The natural beauty and cultural diversity of Georgia's Ajara province and the Polish region of Lower Silesia will be highlighted in works by photographers from the two countries in the Black Sea city of Batumi starting next week.
A three-day celebration of the art of photography is launching in the Black Sea city of Batumi this Friday with the Batumi Photo Days Festival.
A UNESCO-supported project by Georgian professionals of the culture field will be unveiled this week to present a vision on boosting sustainability of artistic and cultural organisations and individuals in the country in the coming years.
An artificial island in the shape of a palm tree is planned to be built in Georgia's Black Sea resort town of Batumi in which 'several hundred million dollars will be invested', head of the government of Adjara Tornike Rizhvadze told local Imedi TV.
In total $100 million will be invested in an artificial island in the shape of a palm tree planned to be built in Georgia's Black Sea resort town of Batumi. Ambassador Island is the name of the project which will be developed on 90 ha in Tamari settlement, at the entrance to the city, near Batumi Central Station.
Georgia's capital Tbilisi and the Black Sea coastline city of Batumi are two of the 49 most recent cities to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, an initiative aiming to stimulate creative industries and showcase cities supporting them.
Three locations in Georgia's west - the Black Sea port city of Poti, Imereti provincial capital Kutaisi, and Zugdidi in the Samegrelo region - will receive up to €30,000 in European Union funding to develop strategies for their cultural and creative sectors, as part of the EU4Culture project launched this year to support Eastern Partnership countries.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has laid the capsule for the construction of the $100 million “largest investment project” of Ambassador Batumi Island in the Black Sea resort city of Batumi that will employ 2,000 people, the Government Administration announced on Saturday.
Georgia’s National Agency of State Property has prepared amendments for the Law on the Maritime Space in order to regulate issues related to use of artificial islands and peninsulas created in the territorial seas of the country.