A descendant of Russia’s last emperor Nicholas II has wed in a lavish ceremony on Friday, marking the country’s first royal wedding since the Bolshevik revolution overthrew the monarchy a century ago.

Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Romanov tied the knot with his Italian fiancée Rebecca Virginia Bettarini at St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg in front of dozens of royal guests, the local Fontanka.ru news website reported.

Romanov said that the couple chose the former imperial capital for their nuptials because it was the first place in Russia where the family returned following the Soviet collapse.

“It is very, very close to our family,” he told Fontanka.ru, adding that St. Petersburg is “the history of Russia” and “the history of the House of Romanov.”

The lavish Russian Orthodox ceremony featured Fabergé wedding rings, Sicilian wine and food provided by catering magnate Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is better known by his nickname “Putin’s chef,” Fontanka.ru reported.

Bettarini, 39, walked the aisle in a white satin gown by designer Reem Acra, who has dressed celebrities like Beyoncé, Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Melania Trump, and a tiara designed by Chaumet, the official jeweller to Empress Joséphine and Napoléon, according to Fontanka.ru.

Among the 1,500 guests were some 50 royals from European countries including Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain and Naples, Fontanka.ru reported.

The guest list also reportedly included Sarah Fabergé and Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

The wedding ceremony lasted approximately two hours, with only a third of the guests invited for reception at the Russian Ethnographic Museum, symbolically founded by Nicholas II.

George Romanov, 40, is a descendant of Nicholas II, who was executed by Bolsheviks along with his family in July 1918 in the city of Yekaterinburg.

He was born in Madrid to Grand Duchess Maria Romanova and the Prussian Prince Franz Wilhelm of Hohenzollern. He spent most of his life living in Spain and France before visiting Russia for the first time in 1992 with his grandfather Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich, a trip he said was “filled with emotion.”

His mother is the granddaughter of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, a first cousin of Nicholas II who fled Russia during the revolution and declared himself emperor from exile.

He has worked in the European Parliament and the European Commission and has served as an advisor to the director of Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel. Today, he works on charity projects from the couple’s residence in central Moscow.

He met Bettarini in Brussels during his time at the European Parliament. A daughter of the Italian Ambassador to Belgium, Bettarini has worked as a writer and lobbyist and now works as the director of the Russian Imperial Foundation. In the Russian imperial tradition, Bettarini converted to the Russian Orthodox faith last year and took the name Victoria Romanovna.

“A new chapter of our life book together is starting. As a writer I hope that the journey ahead will be full of love, suspense and adventure as the first part of our life book was,” Bettarini wrote on Instagram after they went public with their engagement.

Romanov told The Insider earlier this year that he hoped the wedding would show “the nice side of Russia, the beauty, the culture and the history.”

“And to also help tourism get back to its levels if we’re allowed to travel,” he said.

Congolese Rumba has wide appreciation across the African continent and other parts of the world. There is a campign seeking to conserve it under UNESCO’s world heritage site.

The promotional campaign in favour of the inscription of the Congolese rumba on the representative list of the cultural heritage of humanity of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) was launched on August 17 in Kinshasa.

For the Congolese Minister (DRC) of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Catherine Katungu Furaha, the inscription of the rumba will be an occasion to rejoice for the population of the two Congolese shores.

“Today is an opportunity to tell the Congolese population that there is reason to rejoice in the fact that the only thing that we have of very value is this dance of value, this dance of dignity which will be brought to the knowledge and appropriation of the world, ”said Catherine Katungu Furaha.

She advised the Congolese to appropriate and promote the virtues of Congolese rumba:

“First we have to start making this our own, not settling for what we import elsewhere when we have value with us, at home. We need to support this, we need to be informed about what Rumba is and what it brings to us. ”

For her, “the Rumba will bring us recognition, will strengthen our diplomacy, but also somewhere an opportunity to say that with dance, we can turn this cultural industry into a production.”

Catherine Katungu Furaha requested the media to increase the number of programs that promote and popularize this music which constitutes the identity of a whole people in order to provide the public treasury:

“We need to bring money into our public treasury because without putting money into our public treasury, music will continue to be seen as the last line item.”

The UNESCO Representative in the DRC, Jean Pierre Ilbudo, welcomed this “happy” initiative and reaffirms all support for the inclusion of Congolese rumba, after Brazilian Zumba, on the representative list of the cultural heritage of humanity of the ‘UNESCO.

The executive board of UNESCO will in fact meet next October to examine the candidacy for the inscription of Congolese rumba.

Between November and December, it will be the jury’s turn to decide on this candidacy which mobilises the governments, experts, practitioners and technicians of Congolese rumba from the two Congos.

A US based organisation, the Sacred Fire Foundation has awarded a Maasai cultural chief Salaton ole Ntutu for his efforts in preserving culture.

The award handed over the weekend is known as ‘Wisdom Treasure Award’ at David Bower Center, Berkeley in USA.

Maasai Chief Salaton ole Ntutu, 67, is the first African to win the award.

A self-styled Maasai cultural ambassador has traversed several countries abroad to showcase the much-adored Maasai culture.

According to the foundation that was founded in 2007, Ntutu is the tenth annual award winner this year. He was found to be dedicated to keeping his culture alive and thriving.

“He champions self-sustaining initiatives in the areas of employment, water, women’s rights, education, conservation, and tourism through organisations he has co-founded,” read the attribute.

Ntutu founded the Enkiteng Lepa, a community-based organisation, that protects cultural values, ceremonies, and traditions while working to eliminate harmful practices such as female circumcision and early marriage.

In 2009, Ntutu founded the Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp whose proceeds fund progressive projects and promote the value of his community’s traditions.

“A lifelong dream for Salaton is to demonstrate that people can thrive by simultaneously preserving traditions and respecting the natural world, and while doing so, can increase awareness of the criticality of indigenous wisdom for all humankind,” said the Sacred Fire Foundation in a statement. Ntutu traveled to the US last week to receive the award.