Ice Sculpture Festival in Moscow

In Moscow on 27 December 2010 will be held the opening of the International Festival of snow, ice and light sculpture "Unexplored Worlds", which will operate till February 28, 2011. The event is organized by the Commonwealth of sculptors of Russia on ice, snow and sand compositions, the Memorial Museum of Astronautics, LLC "Cosmos", cultural center "Vyugovey". The festival will be supported by the Moscow government.

In honor of the 50-year anniversary of the legendary flight of Yuri Gagarin into space, which on April 12, 1961 became the first man who got into the Earth orbit, the upcoming 2011 year will be the space year in Russia according to the presidential decree. A series of anniversary events will be opened by the international festival "Vyugovey - 2011", which this year was called "Unexplored worlds".

It will be held in the Memorial Space Museum Park (VDNH metro station), where visitors will be able to see about 70 sculptures made of ice illustrating the entire history of the Soviet space exploration. Among the main exhibits will be a ten-meter copy of the "Vostok" legendary spaceship and a little less daunting in its size copy of the "Buran" space shuttle.

In addition the festival visitors will be able to see the ice sculptures of famous Soviet cosmonauts and heroes of the famous Hollywood blockbuster "Star Wars" and the fantastic inhabitants of "Pandorra" and "Solaris" planets. The venue of the festival will be decorated with light compositions, which are designed to create an appropriate atmosphere of space.

As the beginning of the festival "Unexplored Worlds" falls on the school holidays, the organizers created an extensive entertainment program for children and their parents, under which it will be possible to skate on ice slopes and other rides, take part in various competitions and quizzes, as well as attend master classes on creating snow and ice sculptures.

During the New Year Eve - from 28 to 30 of December – at the festival will be held the International Competition “Grand Prix of Russia” of ice sculpture, where will compete masters from near and far abroad countries (Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Finland, USA and Uzbekistan) as well as various Russian cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Yekaterinburg).