30 July 2009 / TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, İSTANBUL
Çanakkale's annual Troia (Troy) International Festival will feature a significantly fewer number of events this year as the global economic crisis has hit the financial resources of the Çanakkale Municipality, Mayor Ülgür Gökhan said Wednesday.
The fine arts-dominated festival will still mark its 46th edition, which is scheduled to take place Aug. 10-16, but the number of activities will be reduced in accordance with its scaled-down budget of only TL 38,000, due to a set of economic precautions taken by the municipality, Gökhan explained in a news conference that announced the details of the festival. It will not be as comprehensive as it used to be because the festival's “sponsors also had to cut back on their expenses,” he said.The mayor noted that the festival's main theme will again be “peace,” continuing on the event's self-declared mission of promoting peace among the nations of the world.
Gökhan also announced that the festival's annual Homer Prize for Science, Art and Culture will be given this year to ceramics artist Erdinç Bakla for his contributions in the promotion of Çanakkale and the city's cultural life through his exhibition “Hitit ve Troia Rüzgarı” (A Breeze of Hittite and Troy), in which he combined two collections of sculptures that were inspired by the Hittite and Trojan civilizations. Bakla will receive his prize on Aug. 10 at the festival's opening ceremony at the site of ancient Troy.
