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5. Marc Chagall and Vitebsk Art School

Marc Chagall and Vitebsk Art School

Vitebsk - the city of artists

• Route: Minsk – Vitebsk
• Tour Duration: 4 nights /4days

Tour Description

This tour is not meant for experts in arts. It is for everyone who appreciates the beautiful, be it the surrounding nature, music, fine arts or just someone’s extraordinarily happy life. During the tour you will have a look at works created by Marc Chagall - one on the most successful men of the first part of the 20th century. You will get familiar with works of many Belarusian artists as well as of the Russian ones whose life and creative activity in this or that way were connected with Belarus. On the way from Minsk to Vitebsk you will enjoy the beautiful Belarusian countryside and of course visit magic Vitebsk. Marc Chagall's brilliant travel into the world of arts started from this city. This city inspired a lot of poets, writers and other famous people. During the tour you will lean a lot, meet people of creative professions and, who knows, may be Vitebsk will encourage you too.

Program

Day 1, (Minsk)

• Arrival in Minsk;
• Transfer to the hotel;
• Check in at the hotel;
• Included or optional luch in the hotel;
• Visit to the State National Art Museum (collection of ancient Belarusian art, Russian and Belarusian pre-revolutionary art. There are original works of graduates of the celebrated Vitebsk Art school. The only existing portrait of Marc Chagall made by his first teacher Yu.Pen is exhibited in the museum. There are valuable works of West European and Eastern painters);
• Overnight in the hotel (B&B).

Day  2 (Minsk)

• Buffet breakfast in the hotel
• City tour: "Minsk -  New European Capital" (Complex of Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches and monasteries,  a Merchants’ house, Town Hall and other survived buildings of the past in the Old City. Unique buildings of the  pre-war & post – war periods, drive through Independence Avenue presenting a grandiose post-war reconstruction in the “Stalin Empire” style to have a glimpse at its squares, parks and monuments. Victory Square with a high and slender  Victory monument  to commemorate Soviet Army men and paritzans who liberated Minsk from the Nazi on the 3d of July 1944. “Island of Tears” - a memorial to honor “the sons who have fallen in Afghanistan to embody the wish of  Belarusian mothers that no evil will ever again reign in this and other lands”. New landmarks in the architecture including diamond-shaped building of the National Library, House of Charity, “ Minsk-Arena” Sports and Entertainment Centre, New Russian Orthodox Intercession Church);
• Visit to the “Vernisage” Art Market (paintings of modern Belarusian artists as well as items of Belarusian handicrafts and souvenirs);
• Included or optional lunch in the centre of the city;
• Visit to the Museum of Zair Azgur (Belarusian sculptor, graduate of the Vitebsk Art school, This is a museum-workshop of one sculptor. One can find a similar museum only in Paris - this is the museum of Roden. In the sculptural hall with ceilings of eight-meter height there are shelves, which display busts of leaders, partisans, writers, musicians, philosophers from the bottom to the top: Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, Karl Marx, Vera Horuzhaya, Ho Chi Minh, Alexander Pushkin and Maxim Bogdanovich - heroes and evil geniuses of the 20th century - this is not a complete list of the sculptor's works that can be seen in the museum. In all, there are more than 300 works);
• Free time at  one of the largest underground three level "Stolitsa"Shopping Mall in Independence Square; 
• Departure for Vitebsk, Train No.704Б, 4.43 p.m.;
• Arrival in Vitebsk, 8.23 p.m.;
• Check in at the hotel; 
• Included  or optional dinner in the hotel;
• Overnight in the hotel (B&B).

Day 3 (Vitebsk)

• Buffet breakfast in the hotel;
• City tour of Vitebsk (Sights in the so-called Lower and Upper Castle areas: the 12th century Annunciation church, the Assumption Cathedral with its Golden Domes, the highest church, natural and architectural dominant of the city, Vitebsk Governor’s House in a classical style & a number of other fascinating buildings & monuments. A monument to Mark Chagall depicting him captivated by his dreams and a tiny figure of a flying woman, symbolizing his wife Bella with whom it was so easy to be lying over the roofs of the native city. Summer Amphitheater, contemporary buildings and new neiborhoods will certainly produce an unforgettable impression);
• Included or optional lunch in the city centre;
• Visit to the Art - Center of Marc Chagall to see the artist’s original works (colored lithographs, xylographs, etchings with famous images: flying lovers, fiddler on the roof, acrobats, animals and birds will bring you into a bright and mysterious world of the artist); 
• Included or optional lunch in the city;
• Visit to House – Museum of Marc Chagall accommodated in the building in the Pokrovskaya street where the artist spent his childhood and youth (interior of the house was recreated thanks to the artist’s sketches, family photographs, pictures made in Germany, Paris and US, will remind that you heard about him long ago but never guessed he was from Belarus);
• “Violin of Mark Chagall” program (pieces of classical & Jewish music, tea from a real Russian samovar);
• Overnight in the hotel (B&B).

Day 4 (Vitebsk)

• Buffet breakfast in the hotel
• Visit to the Vitebsk Regional Art Museum (collection of works of the Vitebsk painter-realist Yu.Pen, first teacher of Marc Chagall, works of famous Belarusian and Russian artists of the XYIII -XXth centuries, Belarusian embroidery of the same period);
• “Program 'At the Vitebsk artist’s”workshop"; 
• Included or optional lunch in the city;
• Deparure for Minsk;
• Check in at the hotel;
• Overnight in the hotel (B&B).

Day 5 (Minsk)

• Buffet breakfast in the hotel;
• Departure to whatever destination of your choice.