On Sunday Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko and Leonid Kuchma took part in the Druzhba-2004 international youth festival.
Slavyanskoye Podvorye consists of three improvised "streets" - Ukrainian, Belarussian and Russian. On these streets in the "houses" whose role was played by tables, works of art and craftwork of the three nations were represented.
Music bands that sang folk songs met the state leaders on each street.
The presidents joked a lot.
The presidents were given three massive wooden mugs and Kizhi cut glass items made in the well-known workshops in Dyatkovo, Russia's Bryansk region.
Kuchma was presented with a book, Putin with a rug woven from yarn of the Russian flag colors with an image of Russia's coat of arms.
Later the Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian presidents visited the city of Novgorod-Seversky (Ukraine).
Putin and Lukashenko arrived there on board one helicopter that landed at the take-off ground on the territory of a local stadium.
The host of the meeting, Kuchma, arrived on board his own helicopter earlier.
The three leaders participated in the ceremony of consecrating the Savior-Transfiguration Monastery, laid flowers to the memorial to those killed in the Great Patriotic War, which is located near the walls of the monastery.
The monastery is a complex of religious, dwelling and technical facilities enclosed with high walls with eight towers. It was founded in the 11th -12th centuries on a hill above the floodplain of the Desna river.
The formation of the modern look of the monastery complex began in the second half of the 16th century, when it became the residence of Chernigov Metropolitan Lazar Baranovich.
During that period, the Savior cathedral and the palace building with a refectory were rebuilt, cells were repaired, a new stone fence with corner towers and a belfry above the gates was built.
Considerable rebuildings were made in the monastery in the 18th century in connection with the fact that Empress Catherine II was going through the city. A two-floor church was later attached to the cell of the father superior.
During nazi occupation a concentration camp where over 20,000 people were killed was situated on the territory of the monastery. Many facilities were damaged then; their restoration started only after the war, and is now being completed.
In 1989, when the 1000th anniversary of the city and the 800th anniversary since The Lay of the Host of Igor was written were celebrated, memorials to the legendary heroes of this work were built (The main hero of the Lay was the Prince of Novgorod-Seversky). In 1990 the museum bearing the same name was opened in the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral.
