Congress of World Intellectuals in Petersburg to Be Attended by Tonino Guerra and Garcia Markez

The first congress of world Intellectuals will convene in Petersburg in late May. Its plenary meetings will be held in the Marble Hall of the Russian Museum of Ethnography in the context of celebrating St Petersburg's 300th anniversary.

According to Vladimir Grusman, director of the Russian Museum of Ethnography, film directors Tonino Guerra and Michelangelo Antonioni, writer Garcia Markez and many other celebrities have been invited to take part in the congress. Russian participants in the congress will include Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi, Nobel Prize Laureate Zhores Alferov and conductor Valery Gergiyev.

The congress participants will elect an organisational committee to deal with preparation of the next congresses. Apart from that, famous people of the world are supposed to confer upon Petersburg the title of the world's cultural capital in 2003.