The Serbian Embassy in Tokyo organized a cultural event titled "The culture of ancient Romans in Serbia as experienced through five senses", presenting Roman archaeological sites and emperors related to the area of today's Serbia.

Deputy Director of the Josai University's Institute for Central European Studies, Professor Nobuhiro Shiba held a lecture "Serbia and the Roman Empire", focusing on the significant number of Roman emperors having Serbia as a birthplace. Professor Shiba presented the most important Roman sites, including Viminacuim - the provincial capital of Moesia Superior and a transit point connecting East and West, as well as Sirmium, Naissus and Gamzigrad.

The programme, hosted by former Ambassador of Japan in Belgrade Toshio Cunozaki, and attended by 65 guests, included Japanese author Masashi Endo who spoke about ancient Roman cooking, particularly focusing on the territory of today's Serbia and the influence this environment had had on the choice of ingredients used for preparing meals in the late antiquity period. The food fixed by following recipes known at Roman emperors' court was presented and served to the guests who also received their English copies of the National Tourism Organisation of Serbia brochure entitled "Roman Empire in Serbia". An English edition of the monograph "Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae" co-authored by Miomir Korac, Snezana Golubovic and Nemanja Mrdjic was also presented.



Seeing that the event was promoted by Masashi Endo with whom we cooperated for the first time, the majority of guests visited the Embassy for the first time and were able to get acquainted with information about Serbia. This was used as an opportunity to promote particular tourism potentials of Serbia concerning the topic of their interest, as well as to promote Serbian broad cultural and historic heritage and legacy. Deputy Editor-in-chief of the international desk of Kyodo News Japanese media agency H. Tanaka, who had received a special invitation, said that a shorter agency news report would be published about the event.