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The Russian Compatriot: Choice of the SoulThe 2nd International Russian Foreign Compatriot Festival “Russian Song” took place in Moscow Moscow loves songs. There were especially many songs and fun in the Russian capital during the merry Pancake week that coincided in time with the festival this year. Moscow had not heard such warm-hearted, polyphonic and diverse singing for a long time, at least for two years since the first Moscow “Russian Song” Festival. The festival marathon was opened in the presence of sincerely and unanimously applauding visitors by amateur singers and groups, some of them singing with and without a foreign accent, some having a Ukrainian dialect, some speaking the bookish style, easily pronouncing well-known phrases or thoroughly articulating each word. They sang Russian romances and folk songs, Russian classic pieces of music, popular and patriotic songs, as well as war and after-war period songs, since this year the festival was dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic 
At the opening ceremony First Deputy Mayor in the Moscow Government and City Social Sphere Complex Head Lyudmila Shvetsova (Людмила Швецова) and IRCC Presidium Chairman Pyotr Sheremetev (Петр Шереметев) (France) addressed the visitors with welcoming speeches. Festival participants, organizers and visitors were read the welcoming of the Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s (Юрий Лужков) expressing his gratitude to the competitors for their faith in the Russian language and culture, for their aspiration to preserve and enrich the beauty of the Russian song. Moscow was one of the initiators and organizers of this festival, it was Moscow authorities that determined the main goal of the festival — to gather in the Russian capital all those people who live outside Russia but nevertheless eagerly contribute to preservation and consolidation of the position of the Russian culture in the world. The Moscow authorities bore the trip and stay costs of the festival participants, that 490 participants from 53 countries came to the Russian capital to take part in the “Russian Song” Festival. Among them there were people from Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Moldavia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia, France, Canada, the USA, Turkey, Israel, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, China, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Great Britain, Romania, Serbia, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Portugal, and even Australia, Argentina, Brasilia, Morocco, the Republic of South Africa, Peru, Chili and some other countries. This proves that the festival actually has a global scale. The festival took place on ten Moscow concert grounds: Pavel Slobodkin Theatre and Concert Center (Театрально-концертный центр Павла Слободкина), the Russian Foreign House named after A.I. Solzhenitsyn (Дом Русского Зарубежья им. А. И. Солженицына). The concert hall of the Great Patriotic War Museum at the Poklonnaya Hill, the concert hall of A.S. Pushkin Museum (музей А. С. Пушкина), the State Tsaritsyno Open-Air Museum (музей-заповедник “Царицыно”). The war disabled and veterans, as well as young people had been invited to the war song concert. The special atmosphere of solidarity and relation that reigned in the concert hall from the very beginning at times caused people to cry. The competitors devoted themselves to singing letting each sound and each word go through them. After the first few verses the song overwhelmed the visitors too, and soon one could hear a whole choir of those who are not indifferent to the future of their Motherland, who are far from it in terms of distance but are single with it in their soul. Foreign compatriots even name their groups with names from the far-off Motherland: the vocal group Arinushka from Lithuania, the female vocal group of the Cossack choir Stanichniki from Kazakhstan, the group Kupalinka from Spain... The days the competitors spent in Moscow were mapped out to the last five-minute increment: concerts, workshops with famous Russian performers and Russian song masters, excursions to museums and exhibition halls (for many compatriots that was their first visit to Moscow), meetings at different festival clubs giving the chance to get closer acquainted and enjoy Russian talk. “The festival is going on well”, tells IRCC Presidium Chairman Pyotr Sheremetev to journalists. “Wonderful voices, marvellous performance! All songs resonate with the audience. The power of the Russian word and the Russian song must be magic. I am especially grateful to Mr. Luzhkov for the perfect organization.” 
All the people present at the press conference devoted to the festival (it took place on February 9, 2010 at RIA Novosti information agency) mentioned high level of the contesters’ skills in spite of the fact that most of the performers did not practise singing as their profession. “The main selection criterion was performance skills”, says Sergey Sventsitsky (Сергей Свенцицкий), Art Director of the Russian Song project. “Both the genre and the performance manner were taken into account. The total level of the contesters” professional skills is pretty high. Many of those who were in Moscow two years ago has come here again but this year we have much more participants. We are mostly glad that there are young people coming here for the first time who nevertheless heartily sing war songs. It is beyond our comprehension how they manage it!“ Head of Moscow Department of International and External Economic Relations Georgy Muradov (Георгий Мурадов) tells about distribution of the Honourable Award of The Compatriot of the Year 2009: “The festive ceremony will take place on February 11 at the Column Hall of the house of the Unions during the final gala concert of the Russian Song festival. According to the results of 2009 IRCC Presidium chose prize winners in three nominations. The award ‘For contribution to social and political activity of foreign Russian compatriots’ shall go to Miron Ignat, a member of the Romanian Parliament and the World Coordination Council of Russian Compatriots Living Abroad. This should be acknowledgment of his social achievements. Miron Ignat is Chairman of the Russian-Lipovans Community in Romania (these are Old Believers who have been living in Romania for a long time and support Russian culture there). Vadim Kolesnichenko (Вадим Колесниченко), Chairman of the Board of the human rights movement ‘Russian-speaking Ukraine’, will be awarded ‘For contribution to protection of rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine’. It was thanks to him that in 2009 the Russian-speaking Ukraine acquired the status of the leading power caring for protection of our compatriots” rights. The wonderful singer, prize winner of Eurovision 2009 in Moscow Alexander Rybak will be given the award “For contribution to development of art”. The young musician grew up in Norway, but his parents succeeded to bring up a love for the native culture in him. The prize winners will be awarded with a crystal ball symbolizing the fragility of our planet and filled with earth from various parts of Russia. On this crystal globe Russia is marked out in gold. At the press conference journalists were interested to know whether the concerts were recorded and whether broad audience would have access to such records. “We are capturing the events on photo and video, the participants themselves bring us much interesting material. An information bank that will be very significant in terms of culturology is being gradually formed on the basis of it. We are also planning to release a film about the festival. Maybe a CD with songs of the best performers will be released”, answered Georgy Solonina (Георгий Солонина), Director of the Moscow Directorate for Preparing and Holding Public Events. The question “who could be considered a Russian compatriot” was answered by Georgy Muradov: “A Russian compatriot is someone who considers himself to be one. This is one’s intimate and voluntary choice...” The festival is over now. The participants, visitors and organizers — representatives of the Russian legislative and executive government and Moscow Duma, managers of Moscow Government departments — gathered at the Column Hall of the House of the Unions for the final gala concert. Moscow Mayor and IRCC Honorary Chairman Yuri Luzhkov and ICRR Presidium Chairman Count Pyotr Sheremetev distributed the awards, those crystal globes symbolizing our planet, and diplomas to the Compatriots of the Year. 
In the screen blue vast rivers changed to light birch woods and fields of golden wheat, and from the stage one could hear the well-known songs “The Volga River” (“Волга-реченька”), “None but the Lonely Heart”, “Roads” (“Эх, дороги”), “Russia” (“Россия”)... Again and again hundreds of voices from the audience joined in the song being performed, and it became clear that whichever destiny one meets his soul remains that of a Russian. On the next day the participants started to go away home. For the whole week they had shared their talents, creations and love to Russia with the visitors and with each other. Each of them took from their Motherland to their country of residence reminiscences about the russian song that united not only the festival participants, but the whole Russian world... |
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© 2010 Department of Foreign Economic |