Culture

Cultural services in the Smorgon region are provided by 52 cultural centres, the Smorgon Museum of Local Lore, two children’s art schools, two children’s music schools and the Smorgon regional centre for arts and crafts.

There are 21 art groups in the Smorgon region. They participate in various oblast, national and international contests and festivals including the Mikhail Oginsky International Contest of Chamber Groups. The contest was held in Smorgon on March 22. Participating in the music competition were young musicians from Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Poland.

The Mikhail Oginsky Smorgon Children’s Art School, the Zhodishki art school and the music schools in the villages of Zalesje and Soly popularize music culture and education in the region.

The Smorgon centralized library system includes 28 libraries including the Smorgon regional central library, 3 town libraries, 2 children’s libraries, 18 rural libraries and 4 libraries-clubs. They provide services for 32,000 readers of the region. Libraries’ stocks number 462966 thousand copies.

Personnel of the Smorgon library system take an active part in computerizing of library processes. The Smorgon-based and rural libraries are equipped with up-to-date software and have access to Internet. Social information centres, family centres and centres of information support of education operate in the libraries of the region.

The Smorgon Museum of Local Lore gathers information, preserves and popularizes the tangible heritage of the region. The museum stocks number 9,000 articles.