On June 23 the 37th Session of UNESCO in Phnom Penh, the Kingdom of Cambodia, inscribed the sites of the Ancient City of Tauric Chersonesos and Its Chora (fifth century BC – fourteenth century AD) on UNESCO’s World Heritage List

On September 20th, in the About Chersonesos, Sevastopol, there will be solemn delivery of the Certificate of the new high status of the Preserve. This Certificate has been made in Paris by famous calligrapher Christian Rime and signed personally by the Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova. A representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine will present the Certificate to the Director-General of the Preserve.

The guests of the grand event will have an interesting and rich program starting at 16:00 in the Big Hall of the Byzantine Gallery with solemn cancellation of a postage stamp and envelope issued by Ukrainian post office to commemorate the event. The labels of postage payment will be presented by the Head of the Sevastopol Directorate of the Ukrainian State Postal Service Dmytro Melnyk and his deputy Valentyna Amelina. Following the ceremonial cancellation by a special sealing device which will supply the stamps and envelopes with collection value, the press conference will start.

At the press conference there will be speeches of the Director-General of the About Chersonesos Leonid Zhunko, who leaded the team that prepared the nomination dossier, and the Deputy Director-General for Research Larissa Sedikova, who will come into details on the sites within the Preserve inscribed on the World Heritage List. We are waiting for welcome speeches from the Minister of Culture of Ukraine Leonid Novokhatko, the Head of the Sevastopol City State Administration Volodymyr Yatsuba, as well as famous scholars, the Head of the Crimean Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Aleksandr Aibabin and the Director of the Institute of Classical Archaeology of the University of Texas at Austin Joseph Carter, who are linked to Chersonesos by many years of scholarly and creative cooperation. The speeches will be accompanied with illustrations and videos.

Following the speeches delivered by the speakers, the journalist will be invited to ask questions concerning the successful nomination of Tauric Chersonesos and its chora and the perspectives of the About Chersonesos due to the new status of its objects.

The solemn delivery of the Certificate of the Object of UNESCO’s World Heritage will happen at 18:30 on the ancient theatre stage, discovered by the excavations in Chersonesos in 1954. After this short ceremony, the spectators will see theatrical performance “Chersonesos: The Eternal City,” which will tell you about the history and modernity of Chersonesos and the Preserve, and the celebration will finish with colourful fireworks.

The special guests of the celebration in Tauric Chersonesos are representatives of the EU permanent mission to Ukraine headed by the First Counsellor José Roman Leon Lora, Head of the National Park Service of USA John Jameson, Director of the A. G. Leventis Foundation Charalambos Bakirtzis, Professor at the University of Cyprus Vassos Karageorghis, Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine Viktor Baliurko, Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Treasures Serhii Tur, Consul-General of the Russian Federation to Simferopol Vyacheslav Svetlichnyy, governmental officials of Sevastopol and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, employees of academic establishments and museums, cultural community of Sevastopol, and many other persons. More than fifty journalist representing the leading Ukrainian and foreign mass media are accredited to cover the ceremony.

The organisers of the celebration have invested their maximum effort to make this event, which is extraordinary for the cultural life of our country, brilliant and catchy.