One of this year's winners of the high state award for lifetime achievement is the painter Pavle Kuzmanovski, whose career spans more than 50 years.

"I received this award and received it as a big surprise and I would say with disbelief because I did not apply for it, nor did anyone tell me that he applied for me, I did not know anything until the award committee announced the names. of the winners, among whom I was. Later I found out that without knowing it, Darijan Sotirovski, the director of the Commission for Relations with Religious Communities, nominated me and collected all the necessary documents and evidence for my work, otherwise he is also from Tetovo. "He has been following my work for many years and he wanted to try to do something to value that work," the painter Pavle Kuzmanovski told Utrinski briefing.

By the way, this summer, the mural of Pavle Kuzmanovski was destroyed during the reconstruction of the Tetovo high school "Kiril Pejcinovic", painted in 1966. But the author revived it, this time as a painting.

"It never occurred to me to sue or anything like that, but a happy circumstance happened: I did not have the original drawing I was working on, but there was a great photo of the mural, which was given to me by journalists and I made a picture based on that photo. "They quickly announced from the elementary school" Bratstvo "in Tetovo if I would like to make a mural there, but that was impossible because the walls were made of plaster and in the end we exhibited the painting that I made according to the mural", added Kuzmanovski.

On October 28 (Thursday), a book with 180 portraits of Pavle Kuzmanovski will be promoted, published by "Matica Exclusive".

The whole conversation in the video