The International Center of Wine and Gastronomy acted as a co-organizer of the international tourism forum «Week of tourism on the Great Silk Road», which was held in the Republic of Buryatia on June 11-16, 2019. President of the ICWAG Leonid Gelibterman headed the international jury of the II international festival of tolma «From Sevan to Baikal» and the II international championship of professional cooks «Golden Scoop». Teams from Chita, Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude took part in the competitions. The awards were given to the winners by the Head of the Republic of Buryatia A.S. Tsydenov, the president of the International Center of Wine nd Gastronomy L.V. Gelibterman, as well as the jury from Russia, Armenia and Georgia. On June 12, under the leadership of the ICWAG president, a meeting of the initiative group to create a subcommittee on gastronomy tourism as part of the UNWTO Silk Road Program Task Force was held in the building of the Buryat Government. Representatives of Armenia, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Mongolia, Philippines, Russia and Spain unanimously accepted the appeal to the UNWTO Secretary General Z. Pololikashvili and the UNWTO Silk Road Program with a proposal to create a subcommittee on gastronomy tourism and to offer the Republic of Buryatia to be considered as one of the main centers of gastronomy tourism on the Silk Road. In the evening, with the participation of cooks from Ulan-Ude and eminent chefs from Makhachkala (Gogi Bazandarashvili) and Perm (Rashid Rakhmanov) invited by the ICWAG, a gala dinner was held for the forum participants on behalf of the Head of the Republic of Buryatia.
On June 13, the Plenary session of the Week of tourism on the Silk Road was held in the building of the Ulan-Ude Opera and Ballet Theater. It was moderated by L.V. Gelibterman and went with participation of the Minister of Tourism of the Republic of Buryatia M. B. Badmatsyrenova. The speakers: Alla Peresolova (Silk Road expert, Spain), Paco Bauerbaum (UNWTO Affiliate Member, member of the UNWTO Silk Road Task Force, Germany), Nicholas Stamatis (Attache of the Embassy of Greece to Russia), V.I. Kruzhalin (professor, Head of Department of Recreational Geography and Tourism, Moscow State University), I.V. Lebedeva (expert of Autonomous Nonprofit Organization «Agency for the Development of Rural Initiatives»), O.I. Shandurenko (Deputy Head of Department for the implementation of initiatives of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives), S.D. Yarlykovskaya (Head of the Export Support Center of the Pskov Region).
On June 13 and 14, the ICWAG team provided master classes by chefs in Ulan-Ude restaurants and took part in the round table discussion «Topical issues of rural tourism development» in the Baikal Biosphere Reserve.
As a result of the international tourism forum «Week of tourism on the Silk Road», it was decided to hold a large international Forum-Festival on the topic of gastronomy tourism on the Silk Road in the year 2020. Cooperation between the Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Buryatia and the ICWAG in the field of promoting Buryatia in the domestic and foreign markets and assistance in conducting training programs for specialists in the hospitality sector of the Republic will continue.