Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic and the Nis City Council Member for Culture Jelena Mitrovska welcomed the delegations from Vienna and Turkish Izmit at the reception held at Nis City Hall on the occasion of opening the Exhibition entitled Great Places of World History. Prof. Piero Bordin, the founder and the director of the Festival and Symposium Art Carnuntum, initiated 10 years ago a unique series of international events “The Emperors of Carnuntum – They Changed the World”. This project was also one of the reasons of the European Commission for awarding Carnuntum with the European heritage label.  Great Places Of World History Exhibition is also the part of this project and Nis/Naissus – birthplace of Constantine the Great –has been the partner in the since the beginning. This year is the European Year of Cultural Heritage. Also this year is the 70^th anniversary of the Declaration of the Human Rights by the United Nations in Paris on December 10^th, 1948. Both events have a connection to the Exhibition Great Places of World History. The Mayor stressed that he expected that co-operation between the partners in the project would continue with new activities related to marking the 70^th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Professor Piero Bordin emphasized that he expected all cities which have benn involved in the project so far to work together on the project continuation .He pointed out that the Edict of Milan published in 313 could be considered thew origin of the Article No 18 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The guests of the City of Nis on the occasion of celebrating city festivities – the Day of

the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena were the representatives of the the twin city city of Kursk from Russia, Mr. Maslov Yevgeny, a councilor of the Kursk Assembly and a member of the Construction Committee and Mr. Yevdokimov Dmitry, also a councilor in the Kursk city council and the chairman of the Committee for Development of Small and Medium Enterprises and the innovation policy of the Kursk regional assembly. The guests thanked for the hospitality and expressed their hope that the cooperation between two cities would intensify in the future.