OREANDA-NEWS. February 8, 2008. The 17th World Festival of Youth and Students will be held in Belarus in summer 2009, BelTA was told in the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), which is headquartered in Budapest, Hungary.

The decision to hold the festival in Belarus under the motto “We are for the World without Wars” was taken at a WFDY assembly in early February in Lisbon. A letter with the official voting results will be soon sent to the Belarusian Republican Youth Union which initiated the holding of the festival in Belarus, WFDY said.

Belarus will be handed over an official flag of the festival in July 2008 in Caracas which hosted the previous, 16th, festival.
World Federation of Democratic Youth was established in 1945 at the World Youth Conference in London. It was viewed as a successor of the Young Communist International. The Soviet Union was represented by VLKSM (All-Union Leninist Young Communist League) and the youth organisations committee of the Soviet Union. At its heyday (1985) WFDY united more than 100 million young people from 115 countries. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union experienced a difficult period but, as before, continues uniting dozens of youth organisations all around the world.