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Six months ago Orthphoto.net celebrated its 5th anniversary. To commemorate this important anniversary we have organized international photographic exhibitions. The team of orthphoto together with the users, local governments, orthodox parishes and individual sponsors had worked together to present our photographs to a wide audience. Altogether, 300 printed images by 170 authors were presented. The photos show the Orthodox culture and traditions of 43 countries. To enrich the spiritual value of the exhibitions a CD with 55 Orthodox chants was played during the events. The idea was that the exhibitions would be started almost simultaneously in many countries. Then, the photos were to tour the countries and be shown in different places. So far the exhibitions have taken place in Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland, Russia and Romania. It is possible that in the future the exhibition will also take place in Belarussia and we still hope that our photographs will be presented in many other places worldwide. Below we present short descriptions of all of the recent exhibitions. All of them were unique in their character and they attracted many visitors in all locations. Bulgaria: Varna - Ruse - Razgrad The first exhibition was opened on Easter, April 19th 2009, in Varna, Bulgaria. The photographs were presented in the Spirit and Education Center of “St. Archangel Mihail”. The exhibition was opened by His Holiness the Metropolitan of Varna and Veliki, Preslav d-r Kiril. Among the official guests was the deputy mayor of Varna, Mr. Kosta Bazitov and the Bulgarian coordinator of the Orthphoto.com website, Mr. Atanas Dimitrov. Next, the exhibition was taken to the city of Ruse. There, it was opened officially on May 1st, 2009 by the Metropolitan of Ruse, Neofit. Other official guests at the openings were the consul of the Russian federation and also the coordinator of Orthphoto, Atanas Dimitrov. The exibition had been well prepared thanks to the financial and physical help of the Municipality of Ruse. The head and organizer of the project was Milen Bakalov, who is responsible for the sector of Culture, Education and pilgrimages in the Metropolis of Ruse. The exhibition was displayed in the Municipal Exhibition hall. Overall, the exhibition project generated a lot of interest and attracted over 5000 people. We then exhibited our photographs in one more locales in Bulgaria such as in Razgrad. This exhibition took place between 20 and 30 July 2009 in the Ethnographic museum in Razgrad. The display in this location was met with a great deal of enthusiasm and was viewed by about 2000 people. Serbia: Beograd – Paraćin - Varvarin - Ćićevac Almost all of our exhibitions commenced in May and Serbia was chosen to be the next country where we chose to launch our photo presentation. On Saturday, May 9th 2009 we presented the exhibition in the capital city of Serbia, Belgrade. The event took place in the parish hall of St Sava Temple. Our exhibition was, so far, the biggest exhibition in Serbia connected to the theme of Orthodoxy. Perhaps that is why it attracted so many visitors. The hall proved to be too small to host all the visitors to this event, but in the end everyone had a chance to appreciate our photographs. Thanks to Slobodan Simic GuliVar, a well-known Serbian Orthodox photographer, the exhibition was able to travel further to the south in Serbia. The photo exhibition were displayed in the towns of Paraćin, Varvarin and Ćićevac during the whole month of June. The excellent organization of the Serbian exhibition was accomplished by our dedicated users, Danijela Oluic, Tatjana Radic and Aleksa Stojković. Poland: Bialystok –Warsaw – Biala Podlaska – Bilgoraj – Lublin Another country where we presented our photographs was Poland. The first Polish exhibition was started in Bialystok, the city where the Orthphoto project had been initiated. The event took place in Bialystok’s Orthodox Culture Center. Alik Wasyluk, the co-author and the manager of the Website, welcomed the guests and gave a brief speech about OrthPhoto.The speech was followed by the concert of the St George Parish Choir. His Eminence Archbishop Jacob and Bialystok's vice-president Alexander Sosna, were present at the ceremony to officially open the exhibition. At the end of the day there was a group of talks entitled “Orthodox Surprises”. During these talks a few travelers told the visitors about their travels to Finland, Africa, Kosovo and Metohija, and Georgia. They focused on unusual events and the surprising customs of the countries they had visited. It is estimated that about three thousand people visited the exhibition. The event proved to be a great opportunity for us to show our photographs to a wider audience and to meet face-to-face with many Polish users of Orthphoto.com. Shortly after the Bialystok opening our exhibition was presented in Warsaw, the capital City of Poland. It was displayed in Rosyjski Ośrodek Nauki i Kultury in Warsaw. The Warsaw Exhibition was organized by another of our Orthphoto users, Igor Sadowski. Despite rainy weather the event attracted a great turnout and it proved to be a great success. Next, the Polish exhibition was hosted in a other locations in Diecezja Lubelsko- Chelmska. In the town of Biala Podlaska the exhibition was a part of a concert of the “Gems of Podlasie Region’s Culture”. The Archbishop of the Orthodox Diocese of Lubelsko-Chelmaska, Abel, together with the consul of the Republic of Belorussia, Wlodzimierz Ananicz, officially opened the exhibition. Another town on the Orthphoto exhibition tour was Bilgoraj. This town has a multicultural history and its citizens are very open to other religions and cultures. Perhaps this is the reason why the exhibition in Bilgoraj attracted many interested visitors. The last town in the Lubelsko-Chelmska diocese where our exhibition was presented was Lublin. The viewers had a chance to see our photographs between the 24th and the 28th of October, 2009. Hosted in the hall of Collegium Maius of Lublin’s Medical University, the exhibition attracted a great number of visitors. One of them commented on the event in the following way: “the uniqueness of this exhibition is caused by the fact that it presents a full and coherent image of worldwide Orthodoxy, as viewed through the lens of over 170 professional and amateur photographers from many countries. The exhibition shows local customs and traditions but it also shows elements common for all of these nations. Through the variety of authors the exhibition shows many various perspectives of Orthodoxy.” Lastly, we have arranged to open two more exhibitions in Poland in the next year. They will take place in Terespol and, again, in Warsaw. Russia: St. Petersburg In Russia the exhibition was organized by “Thomas” (FOMA) magazine. The magazine is one of the best-known and prestigious Russian magazines addressed to Orthodox readers. The exhibition was arranged as a major project of the magazine and was, historically, the second exhibition of this project. Photos prepared by the Orthphoto team were shown alongside sets of photos by ten great Russian photographers such as Andrei Czezin, Dimitrij Wyszemirskij, Nikita Maszkin and others. The exhibition opened on May 7th, 2009 in St. Petersburg in the Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress. The venue of the exhibition was a magnificent hall in one of the oldest buildings in St. Petersburg which was a great honour to us. This exhibition is probably going to be shown next year in Belarussia. Romania: Caracal – Mioveni - Pitesti The last country which welcomed the Orthphoto exhibition was Romania. There, Mihaela Nedea and Ionut Trandafirescu, had prepared several exhibition locations. The first one was held on August 18th, 2009, in the National Theatre in Caracal. The opening was a part of the series of events organized by Slatina and Romanaţilor Diocese to commemorate St. Martyrs of Brâncoveni. After the opening, our exhibition was transferred to Mioveni. There, the exhibition was presented in the Cultural Center of Labour Unions. During the event a meeting with famous theologian and writer, Laurentiu Dumitriu, took place. The last place in Romania that hosted our exhibition was Pitesti, where our photographs were shown in the Galeria Naţională de Artă Naivă. Summary During the exhibitions we presented 300 printed images by 170 authors. Altogether, the photos show the Orthodox culture and traditions of 43 countries. Photos were taken in those countries where Orthodoxy is the main religion as well as in those where Orthodox people are a minority. To enrich the spiritual value of the exhibitions a CD with 55 Orthodox chants was played during the events. We hope that it’s not the end of our exhibitions and that they will be displayed in many more places. We would like more Orthphoto users to actively take part in the preparations of new exhibitions in other locations. If you want to see the exhibition in your country or town you can contact us and we will help you organize an opening. We can send you a printed version of the photographs displayed during the exhibitions or send a multimedia presentation. If you are interested, please, contact Mr Aleksander Wasyluk thorugh e-mail a.wasyluk@orthphoto.net. For more information regarding the exhibitions, visit www.exhibition.orthphoto.net. You will find there much more information on the exhibitions along with photographs, news video files and reports on the exhibitions from local newspapers and media. We would like to say that the exhibitions happened thanks to the dedicated group of volunteers who have constantly and actively helped us. Morover, many organizations offered their financial and logistic assistance. Numerous sponsors and members of local governments have supported us, not only financially, but also spiritually. Therefore, we would like to thank them for their support and help. We wouldn’t have managed to do anything without you. Thank you! Many times people have thanked us for our undertaking. They were also expressing their hopes for similar events organized by Orthphoto. All those kind words strengthened us and motivated us to continue working for the good of our church and communities. We hope that we will manage to organize many more similar events in the future and other similar projects. We are going to organize international photography workshops in 2010 which, hopefully, will be followed by or part of a series of similar exhibition.