The Minister of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China, Luo Shugang and the Minister of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia, Hysni Ismaili, visited Ohrid on November 23, 2019.  Minister Shugang heads the Chinese delegation to the Fourth Ministerial Forum for Cultural Cooperation between China and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which is hosted by our country.

 During the visit to Ohrid, the two ministers and the high Chinese delegation, accompanied by the hosts from our institution, visited some of the cultural monuments and museum exhibits that are being cared for by the NI Institute and Museum-Ohrid. They reviewed the permanent display in the world-famous Icon Gallery, the churches of the Holy Mother of God Peribleptos and St. Sophia, the archaeological site Plaosnhik and the archaeological and ethnological exhibitions at the Robev family house. While visiting the old part of Ohrid, Minister Shugang had the opportunity to get acquainted with the rich cultural heritage of our city, expressing great interest in it and expressing satisfaction with its condition, presentation and care for it.  During the visit, the delegation took a stroll through the Old Ohrid Bazaar, and also visited the handmade paper workshop, where the process of making the paper was demonstrated, as well as the method of making the unique Ohrid pearl while visiting one of the shops of the Filev family.

During the official visit to our country on October 04, 2019, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, Mr. Mike Pompeo, together with his wife, Mrs. Susan Pompeo, was in Ohrid. The Secretary of State and his entourage, which included the former ambassador to our country and now the US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe  and Eurasia, Philip Reeker, US Ambassador to Skopje Kate Marie Burns, and advisers Mary Kisel and Ricky Waddell, visited the Icon Gallery within the NI Institute and Museum-Ohrid. They were visibly amazed by the splendor and beauty of the Ohrid collection of icons and expressing great interest about their value and significance.

Manuscripts from 9th and 10th centuries, which are part of the collection of the NI Institute and Museum-Ohrid, were also temporarily exhibited in the Icon Gallery especially for this occasion and presented to the high guests from the United States.

In addition to the Icon Gallery, the guests from the United States also visited the church of the Holy Mother of God Peribleptos from 1295, which is one of the most significant Christian shrines and masterpieces of Byzantine architecture and wall painting.

The conservation of architecture and fresco-paintings of this church, as an important church and cultural heritage site, was implemented as part of a project that ran from 2009 to 2016, with funds of $ 650.000, provided through USAID's programs and the Special Ambassadors Fund for the Protection of Civilizational Artifacts of Cultural and Historical Heritage.

Today, the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Robert Alagjozovski, accompanied by the head of his office Todorce Tasevski and the adviser Petrit Sarachini, had the first official visit to the NI Institute and Museum-Ohrid.

They had a brief working meeting with the director Tanja Paskali-Buntasheska, that was spent in a pleasant atmosphere with presentation of the current projects of our institution, but also the overall work in the past period, as well as certain problems that we face in our day-to-day operations.

After the meeting, the Minister, with his escort, made a tour of the working premises and depots in the administrative building "Radnichka", where he met the employees and had an opportunity to get acquainted directly with several different segments of the overall work of the NI Institute and Museum-Ohrid, in particular from the field of ​​protection and museology, as the core activities of our institution.

At the end of his stay, the Minister and his associates, accompanied by the director Tanja Paskali-Buntasheska, visited the Icon Gallery and the church of the Mother of God Peribleptos and expressed satisfaction with the way of preservation, securing and displaying the valuable icons as well as the overall condition of the Gallery, and the condition of the church after comprehensive conservation (architecture and fresco painting), carried out in the past two years.

Last night, in the house of Urania was held a promotion of the scientific work "The Monetary circulation at Plaoshnik-Ohrid in the Imperial Period" by Sanja Bitrak, archaeologist and numismatist from Ohrid who is employed at the Archaeological Museum in Skopje.
In antiquity, the ancient Lychnidos was a significant economic center and a minted its own coins called lychnidions, and also their coins have minted the Desaretti tribe that inhabited this area.

During the excavations of Plaoshnik, over 20,000 coins were discovered that not only enriched the city's numismatic fund, but also gave some data on the economic and historical activity of this city and region.

The book contains 287 coins found at this site in the period from 2001 to 2010. The coins are minted of silver and bronze, and they are very important as a cultural heritage.
The book promoter, Dr. Slavica Babamova, noted that it contains many important data, unknown to the scientific public and that it fills an important segment of the history of Macedonia in the Roman period, a historical era for which the events in Macedonia are quite briefly mentioned in ancient sources.

The book "Monetary Circulation at Plaoshnik-Ohrid in the Roman Imperial Period" is the first work of Sanja Bitrak, and the promotion was organized by the NI Institute and Museum Ohrid.

On Friday, June 30 at 20:00 in the "Robevci "Gallery will be opened the exhibition "Inside garden" of the artist, who is also a part of the avant-garde generation of  artists from Romania, Emilia Persu.

The exhibition will present the latest cycle of author's works made on canvas in combined technique and will be open until July 6.

Last night, the fifth session of the International Summer School of Architecture, organized by the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the University "American College" in Skopje and NI Institute for Protection of Monuments of Culture and Museum-Ohrid was opened in Center for Culture "Grigor Prlichev" in Ohrid.

The dean, Prof Dr Mishko Ralev and the head of the school, Vladimir Deskov, addressed at the opening ceremony, after which the Slovenian architect Dean Lah gave a lecture.

After the act of opening and the lecture of Dean Lah, the participants of the Summer School, together with the organizers, the hosts and the guests, had the opportunity for unconventional talks and friendship at a small cocktail, organized in the area of the Lapidarium, next to the Robev family house.

The Summer School, which this year's theme is "Natural Systems" will be led by the architect Dean Lah, co-founder and partner in the renowned architectural studio "Enota" from Ljubljana and will last until July 2. Guests of the school will be the architects Kreshimir Rogina and Vinko Penezic from Croatia, as well as Jurij Lichen from Slovenia. Students of architecture from the universities "American College" and "St. Cyril and Methodius" will take participation at the school. Within the school, lectures will be given by guest lecturers, and on Saturday, 01. 07. 2017, a public presentation of student projects will be held.

The exhibition "Intaglio" consists of graphics works of the authors from "Print Nest Studio" in Sofia, Bulgaria. Namely, six young artists from Macedonia and Bulgaria have established their own studio in Sofia, Bulgari,a authors who cherish the traditional graphic techniques.

"Print Nest Studio" is a workshop in which a group of young artists in love with the graphic art, find a way in which to turn imaginary worlds into real. The studio combines different personalities, people with different abilities and attitude to life, but with a common vanishing point. The feature in the graphics of the young authors is to build the image in the range of black and white. They used mainly traditional graphic techniques to create forms and spaces, conditions, thoughts and feelings, give special warmth and intimacy of perception. The contemporary look of the graphic sheets is reinforced by the topicality of the issues addressed in their works. The thematic register is diverse and multi-layered. The forms vary in possible technical range from the accuracy of the miniature to monumental. On this exhibition that will last until June 29 their works will display the artists: Zoran Mishe, Ivan Mateev, Vasil Angelov, Goran Trichkovski, Pavel Celkoski and Iva Dimitrova.

Small format as a creative challenge was a common daily practice of painters and sculptors in petty plastic. The magic of the "small square" in size 25 x 25cm was an ordeal also for the great masters of the brush and paint, Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Lautrec, Van Gogh, Gauguin, artists from all schools, art movements and styles who felt the emotional distress to overcome the little square, and in concise, lapidary, sometimes metaphorical and Aesopean way to transpose the event and the motif from the big canvas in smaller measure.

This exhibition will be present works made in various art techniques by 50 Macedonian authors, members of the Society of Artists of Macedonia.

The exhibition will last until 15. 06. 2017.

On occasion of May 18th, the International Museum Day, NI Institute and Museum-Ohrid traditionally organizes an exhibition of contemporary art from its rich fund. This year it will be the 27th such exhibition on which, as every year before, artworks of artists that have exhibited their works in recent years in the Art Gallery "Robevci" will be on display before the residents of Ohrid as well as the visitors from abroad.

From 9 to 14 April 2017 a reactive monitoring mission UNESCO/ ICOMOS / IUCN stayed in our country to inspect the implemented activities and to assess how their recommendations on the scope of construction activities and their impact on the environment and cultural heritage if the world heritage site "Natural and Cultural Heritage of the Ohrid Region" are obeyed.

Mission members: Ms. Anna Sidorenko, representative of the World Heritage Center of UNESCO, Ms. Maja Vasiljevic of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature, an advisory body of UNESCO) and Mr. Pierre-Marie Tricaud, representative of ICOMOS (International Council of Monuments and Sites, an advisory body of UNESCO) today had a working meeting in NI Institute for protection of monuments of Culture and Museum- Ohrid. According to Ms. Sidorenko, the goal of the meeting was to obtain information and to review efforts, projects and progress in their implementation by the central and local government in the protection of cultural heritage and implementation of remarks by UNESCO from the 40th session held in Istanbul last year. After the monitoring by the mission, as well as meetings and consultations that follow, they will present their further guidance and recommendations.

Forum of Slavic Cultures (FSK) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 in Ljubljana. The initiative team of experts of the member countries of the Forum (Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Croatia, Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Serbia) in 2012 established the award "Zhiva" and the competition is in six categories.

With their participation, the member states of FSK promote outstanding achievements in the field of cultural values ​​emphasizing at this the significant cultural heritage of Slavic countries. The "Zhiva" award itself is called according to the Slavic goddess of fertility, whose main attribute is grain, so the appearance of this special award is inspired from the classes of wheat.

This year the awards will be held at Bled in Slovenia, from 20 to 24 September and our institution is the only nominee of our country among more than 20 museums from 13 countries.

These days (4-5 April) judges Biljana Brajovic from Montenegro and Katja Dzhumalieva from Bulgaria came to Ohrid to inspect and assess the capacity values, meaning, richness and diversity of our museum collections and in general the overall activity of NI Institute and Museum-Ohrid in the field of preservation, documentation, protection and conservation and, of course, the presentation of the huge fund of cultural heritage entrusted to us for preservation for future generations. The photos are from today's visit to the Museum on Water in the Gulf of Bones, only one of its kind in the Balkans and in the wider region in general. According to the reactions and unabashed admiration of the judges, we are really a serious candidate for one of the prizes, keep your fingers crossed for us!