ST. PETERSBURG, December 26 In An informal summit of leaders of the CIS countries is taking place in St. Petersburg.
The Russian leader invited colleagues from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to begin communication during a tour of the palace and park complexes of the Northern capital.
< br>First they visited the Pavlovsk museum-reserve. After a tour of the palace, in one of its halls a small concert was given for the heads of state: the symphony orchestra «Northern Symphony» and its soloists — cellist Sergei Roldugin and violinist Pavel Milyukov — performed several classical waltzes and romances.
The leaders of the countries also visited the Tsarskoye Selo Museum-Reserve and have already arrived in Peterhof, where they plan to tour the Grand Palace.
The informal CIS summit will end with a conversation at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna.
This event is traditionally held on New Year's Eve. Today’s event is significant because for the first time since the events in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met. They greeted each other with a handshake.