The opening ceremony of the II CIS Games was held in the Minsk Arena

The opening ceremony of the II CIS Games was held in the Minsk Arena.

On the main indoor sports and cultural ground of the country, the audience saw a colorful show.

The organizers tried to surprise everyone and applied a lot of modern technologies and artistic solutions: LED screens, thousands of pieces of lighting equipment, mass choreographic performances and musical compositions. Famous Belarusian pop artists also took to the stage of the arena.





The parade of athletes turned out to be memorable. Representatives of each of the 23 countries were greeted with a separate choreographic number. The parade itself lasted more than 40 minutes.

The opening ceremony of the large-scale sports forum was attended by the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.



– The Belarusian land hosts the Games of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Once again, the attention of millions of fans around the world is focused on us. Just like four years ago, when the victorious fanfare of the Second European Games sounded in our stadiums. Their fire, lit in Minsk, has not gone out. He is burning with faith in Olympic ideals, true justice and sports fraternity. It unites real friends, loyal and reliable, people with an iron character. He brought us together, – Alexander Lukashenko said.



The state flag of Belarus was raised solemnly under the arches of the Minsk Arena. This was done by famous Belarusian athletes – two-time Olympic champion in rowing Ekaterina Karsten, Olympic champion in trampoline Ivan Litvinovich and Olympic champion in kayaking and canoeing Alexander Maseykov.

The flag of the Commonwealth of Independent States was raised by Olympic track and field champions Yanina Provalinskaya-Karolchik, Yulia Nesterenko, as well as Olympic handball champion Andrei Barbashinsky.

The solemn oath of the competition from the athletes was pronounced by Daria Naumova (weightlifting); from the coaches – Vasilisa Marzalyuk; from the judges – Alexander Krayevich.



The opening ceremony was prepared by a team of more than 1.2 thousand people. Among them are 430 dancers of various collectives, 320 volunteers, 40 artists – both young performers and already famous, 100 people of the director's production group, about 300 representatives of other departments organizing this sports festival.



The II Games of the CIS countries started in Belarus in several cities. Together with Minsk, the competitions will be held in Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodno, Mogilev, Soligorsk, Orsha, Molodechno and Zhlobin. More than 2 thousand athletes from 23 countries are expected to participate. Champions and prize-winners will be determined in 20 sports.

Press department NOC Belarus

Photo NOC Belarus