The 51th Trumpet Festival kicked off in Guca, a town in central Serbia, on Monday, with the festival flag raised by Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Konuzin.

Guca has become one of the symbols of Serbia and the Serb identity. Today, this is the capital of Serbia, Konuzin stated in his opening address.

The ambassador said that the life of Serbs today is in no way easy, but that this should not put off manifestations of the kind.

I congratulate you the holiday of Serbia and the holiday of life, said Konuzin, who was later awarded with the Festival Charter.

The festival will last by August 14 and host 1,200 trumpeters, dancing and singing troops, painters, sculptors, weavers, embroiderers and others.

The festival expect over half a million of foreign visitors from around the world, particularly from the Great Britain, Belgium, Slovenia, Croatia and Congo.

The organizers of the festival stress that all events will be free and that the only charges will be for parking permits that will be valid for seven days, costing RSD 1,000 for cars and RSD 3,000 for trucks (EUR 1 = RSD 101.92).

Guca and the neighboring villages have enough accommodation facilities and the prices will remain the same as the last year, from EUR 20 to 25 per bed.

The small Serbian town of Guca in central Serbia, a three-hour drive from Belgrade, is ready for the 51th trumpet festival.

The festival, also known as the Dragacevo Assembly, will be held on August 8-14 and will host more than half a million visitors, lovers of genuine folk art forms from the country and abroad.

“We are expecting about 1,200 members of orchestras, cultural and artist associations and other participants of various events, exhibitions, music and sports competitions,” Slobodan Jolovic, the mayor of the Lucani municipality, who is also chairman of the Dragacevo Assembly board, told Tanjug.

The organizers of the festival stress that all events will be free and that the only charges will be for parking permits that will be valid for seven days, costing RSD 1,000 for cars and RSD 3,000 for trucks (EUR 1 = RSD 102).

Restaurateurs and everyone else are all set for receiving at least half a million visitors that are expected to arrive at the event.

Guca and the neighboring villages have enough accommodation facilities and the prices will remain the same as last year, from EUR 20 to 25 per bed.

The festival will this year by enriched with new programs. There will be a horse carriage exhibition and a number of exhibitions presenting works of folk art painters, sculptors, weavers, embroiderers, as well as other art and culture programs. For the first time, spiritual evenings will be staged in the churchyard of the Church of St. Archangel Gabriel.

The 50th jubilee festival held last year lasted ten days and had around 800,000 visitors, Jolovic recalled.

The total number of people that have been coming to the Guca festival from 83 countries in the fifty years of its history has been at least 15 million, he added.