27.06.2022 // White June, a Festival of a new culture, takes place in Arkhangelsk from 23 June to 3 July. This is the main cultural event of the summer in Pomorie. Books and music, folk crafts and northern cuisine, cybersports and creative industries — this is not a complete list of sections that are represented in a vast programme of the festival.

This year, White June is held for the third time. It was held in 2020 for the first time as a book festival and turned out to be so interesting to Arkhangelsk residents, so it was decided to make it an annual event and most importantly — to expand its boundaries.

'We immediately realised that the event should unite different sections, not only book history,' explains Vasily Larionov, Executive Director of the Arkhangelsk Region Culture and Arts Development Foundation and organiser of the White June Festival.

Now White June Festival includes several thematic sections — films, music, food, art, IT and games. Thus, the White June. Music programme was opened on 23 June with the organ mono-performance And the Apple Flies by poet Dmitry Vodennikov and the winner of international competitions, a member of the duo ArtBene, Dmitry Maximenko. On 2 and 3 July, DJs and folk bands will introduce guests to the festival with northern music.

Perhaps the most striking section of the festival is gastronomy. Arkhangelsk restaurateurs have prepared a real journey through the national cuisines of the world, not forgetting, of course, to pay special attention to their own, the northern cuisine. Traditional dishes of Pomorie in a modern interpretation are interesting not only to Arkhangelsk citizens but also to tourists. And this is one of the main goals of the festival — to attract to Arkhangelsk as many guests from other regions of Russia as possible.

With the emergence of new sections, books have not been overshadowed. This year's White June. Books programme includes more than 300 events with 150 guests, including Vera Bogdanova, Alexey Varlamov and Marina Stepnova. On 25 June, the central event of the whole programme, the awarding ceremony of the winners of the All-Russian Literary Prize named after Fyodor Abramov 'Clean Book', took place.

The business programme of the festival is no less interesting and rich. Thus, on 1 July, there will be two events — the panel discussion 'Development of creative industries in the regions of the Russian Federation in the new economic realities' and the round table 'Development of IT-technologies in the Arkhangelsk Region.' On the same day, the innovative projects of Pomorie will be presented to the experts of the Skolkovo Foundation. All initiatives will be evaluated by experts, and the best authors will be given the status of participants in the Foundation.