The aim of the campaign is to help the Polish diaspora living in the Kakheti region. “It is the poorest part of Georgia. There is terrible poverty there,” Mirosława Bednarowicz from the Via Sudetica association, the project’s chief coordinator, tells the IstotneInformacje.pl portal.
Why did Via Sudetica decide to support the Polish community in Georgia? “I made contact with Jerzy Ciemnołoński, the founder of the Polish House in Kakheti. He made me realize that many people of Polish descent live there,” Mirosława Bednarowicz explains. “The residents of Kakheti are proud to be Polish. They say of themselves: I am Georgian with a Polish heart.
On Tuesday, April 21, Zurab Pirveli, a Georgian actor, singer and longtime lecturer at the State Institute of Theatre and Film Arts in Tbilisi, performed at the Concordia Gallery. In the first part of the evening, the artist presented Marcel Mithois’s surprising one-man show “The Accompanist.” “I chose this play because anyone can be the accompanist in the title role; the Georgian accent does not interfere at all in this monodrama,” Zurab Pirveli says with a smile. The actor has lived and worked in Szczecin for three years.
Everyone gathered at the Concordia Gallery also had the opportunity to hear a concert of Georgian and Russian songs. Zurab Pirveli sang, among others, Bulat Okudzhava’s beautiful “Prayer.” He performed some of the songs in Polish. “I used to sing these pieces in Georgian; now I decided to translate them,” he says.
That evening, visitors could also see a photographic exhibition and a multimedia presentation devoted to the Polish community in Georgia. The exhibition organizers collected photographs showing, among other things, the founding of the Union of Poles in Kakheti, the establishment of a Polish school and the everyday lives of the region’s residents.
The Georgian evening at Concordia launched the donation drive, which will continue until June. Donations for the Polish community will be accepted at Concordia every Saturday and Sunday (from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.). You can read more about the project here.
The Via Sudetica association thanks the Bolesławiec Municipal Office, the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre and the Municipal Sports and Recreation Centre for their help and support for the campaign.
(information: ii)