Last weekend, the regional festival of national games “Boyars, Here We Come to You” was held in the “Dobrodey” Crafts Yard. It was aimed at preserving and popularizing the ethnocultural heritage of different peoples living in the Tula Region.

This year, the festival of national games was held as part of the XVIII Interregional Festival of National Cultures "Country in Miniature". It was held under the motto "Let's Play as a Whole Family", which is especially relevant and valuable in the Year of the Family, designed to popularize state policy in the field of family protection and the preservation of traditional family values.

The event was attended by international students of Tula State University from the students community from Egypt.

The dance with sticks to Arabic music from our Egyptian students turned out to be a real theatrical show with a clear plot and wonderful martial art choreography.

After the concert program, everyone present was involved in the games of the peoples living in the Tula region: Russian, Dagestan, Azerbaijani, Moldavian, Jewish, Tajik, Armenian, Egyptian and others.

It is worth noting that the board game "Senet", which our guys introduced to all the participants and guests of the festival, is an ancient Egyptian boardgame, perhaps the oldest game with moving pieces on a board. As a secular entertainment, it has been known since the Predynastic period of Egypt — about 3500 years BC. Legend has it that it was invented by the ancient Egyptian god of knowledge Toth in order to win a few extra days from the deity of the Moon Khonsu for the goddess Nut, on whom the sun god Ra placed a curse (after all, she could not give birth to a child on any of the 360 days of the year). They put 1/72 of the "light" of each of the 360 days of the lunar year at stake. As a result, Thoth won 5 days, after which the solar year became 365 days long, and the lunar year only 355, and humanity received a new board game and five extra days in the calendar.

— We really liked it! — students from the Egyptian community of Tula State University said. — We took part in this festival for the first time, it was very fun. We learned that it is an annual event, so we definitely want to take part in it again next year. We will come back to tell everyone about the rich culture of Egypt again and learn a lot of new things about other cultures!

During the event, Olga Dmitrievna Gladkova, dean of Institute of International Education of Tula State University, was thanked for her cooperation, creative approach and active participation in the regional festival of national games “Boyars, Here We Come to You” of the XVIII Interregional Festival of National Cultures "Country in Miniature".

Photos provide by the participants of the event.