13. PRES YUSHCHENKO ATTENDS CEREMONY OPENING KYIV ACADEMIC PUPPET THEATER’S NEW BUILDING

Ukrinform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, December 19, 2005

KYIV – On Monday, December 19, St Nicholas Day President Viktor

Yushchenko participated in a solemn ceremony to open the Kyiv Academic

Puppet Theater’s new building.

The ceremony was also attended by Vice Premier Viacheslav Kyrylenko,
Presidential Secretariat First Deputy Head Ivan Vasiunyk, Kyiv Mayor
Oleksandr Omelchenko, Culture & Tourism Minister Ihor Likhovyi. Kyiv

and All-Rus-Ukraine Patriarch Filaret sanctified the building.

Speaking in the ceremony, President Yushchenko referred to the event as

many generations’ dream having come true. As Viktor Yushchenko said,

once Ukraine’s independence was just a dream, which came true not so long

ago.

So, your most cherished dreams will eventually come true and many a kid

will see fairy tales at the theater which will remain forever in their adult
life, the President said, addressing the juvenile audience.

President Yushchenko then commented on the Theater’s opening on St

Nicholas Day as a real miracle, which construction workers have created.

The President presented the symbolic golden key to the Theater to its director
Mykola Petrenko, following which the President and Mayor Olemchenko cut

the entrance ribbon.

President Yushchenko donated a computer to the Puppet Theater. Mayor
Omelchenko’s gift was a Bohdan bus.

UKRINFORM NOTE: The Kyiv Academic Puppet Theater was founded

on October 27, 1927. In 1991 the Theater initiated international puppet festivals,

in which puppet theaters from Belgium, Austria, Canada, Slovakia, Finland,

Japan, China, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, Moldova,

Turkey, other nations participated.

In 1995 the Theater was awarded the Druzhba (“Friendship”) Order, in 2002 it
got the Academic Theater status. The Theater’s repertoire numbers over two
scores of plays by Ukrainian and foreign authors. -30-