The other day, after my weekly yoga class, the yoga teacher was kind enough to point out a poster advertising an ethnic Russian folk festival called, Живая Вода (pronounced zivaya voda). I was naturally curious about it and ran home to Google it. They had not only one, but two web pages, one in remarkably good English and the other, of course in Russian. For the record, here's the English website:
http://runknown.com/festival-of-ethnic-cultures-water-of-life-2013 which looks amazing. I feel like I've fallen into rut over the past several months of doing nothing more than going to work, going home and on rare occasions, seeing my friends. This looked like the shot in arm I needed to reconnect with my love of foreign cultures and travel in general.
I passed this joyous news onto my English girlfriend and a few other people who may have also been interested, most weren't but a few were. My friend, Gabi, had told me about this breath taking festival that she had gone to in Omsk a few weeks prior and to honest, I was (and am) a little jealous. She described seeing about 3000 people dancing around a fire which took 45 minutes to start since they only using dry sticks and stones to start the bonfire. I don't care who you are, if you can start a fire without using matches or gasoline then you get alpha male points. Anyway, with this mental picture already established, the bar was set quite high for the festival I saw advertised.
After a week of planning, Sunday morning came and three bus tickets had been purchased to go to the small village of Kolyvan, which is about 40km outside of the Novosibirsk. Gabi was running late which was no surprise to me since that girl would be late to her own funeral, so it was just the two of us. The bus ride itself was uneventful, and we arrive in Kolyvan in about an hour. There were a few people also going to this festival and once we arrived, no one knew where to go. I was thinking that since the festival was so big and old, surely there would be signs...ha, silly me, for a moment I forgot where I was. No one actually puts up useful signs, only one small one which you can only see if you're on the street of the festival. After asking about five different people we pointed in the proper direction. At some point we made friends with a babushka who was also going the festival. I found her to her to be delightful. Since we had to walk about kilometer, she decided to tell us about a winter folklore festival which she had been to last year.
Finally, the moment of truth, we found the tiny sign and saw some tents, and we had arrived! I sent an excited text to Gabi and then I let my eyes take in the sights around me...
Yes, the town itself is quite picturesque and cozy, but as for the festival, well, you can see for yourself. At first glance I thought was I was just being too harsh, but upon further inspection...well, I saw this.
What about this is exactly 'ethnic Russian'? At no point did someone pull out a balalaika or Altai flute or even a cool violin thing that I don't even know the word for. Instead, we were subjected to off-key Celtic music, which I'm sure all of Ireland would be offended by, less than smooth and rehearsed Indian music and some guy trying pull off throat singing, but it sounded like a bear and a walrus and attempted to mate. In a word or two, I was disappointed and completely disillusioned.
Once I got over my shock and tried to shoo away the gloom that accompanies shock and disillusionment, I tried to find the positive. The positive was this- Russian hippies! The festival was calm and relaxed, as you can see, lots of people were running around half naked, not that I blame them since it was remarkably hot that day. In true hippie style, there were drum circles everywhere, and people doing questionable yoga, people selling trinkets to protect auras and henna tattoos. In retrospect, I should have gotten a henna tattoo since I've never had one before. No one was drinking and almost no one smoked, so it was clean and calm.
After an hour, my other friend Maria, showed up. She was little more prepared that I was and came with blankets to sit on, my only preparation was to bring Mohitos and water. After spending another hour desperately trying to enjoy the bad music and overall laziness of the 'festival' Maria saved me by offering to show me how to make a flower garland. Now I can safely say that I've picked wild flowers and made an interesting piece of head gear.
My main complaint is this: you can't say that you're going to host an ethnic festival and not have ethnic people there. Hippies don't count as ethnic and bad Indian music and even cheaper jewelry doesn't count either, it's just insulting.
http://runknown.com/festival-of-ethnic-cultures-water-of-life-2013 which looks amazing. I feel like I've fallen into rut over the past several months of doing nothing more than going to work, going home and on rare occasions, seeing my friends. This looked like the shot in arm I needed to reconnect with my love of foreign cultures and travel in general.
I passed this joyous news onto my English girlfriend and a few other people who may have also been interested, most weren't but a few were. My friend, Gabi, had told me about this breath taking festival that she had gone to in Omsk a few weeks prior and to honest, I was (and am) a little jealous. She described seeing about 3000 people dancing around a fire which took 45 minutes to start since they only using dry sticks and stones to start the bonfire. I don't care who you are, if you can start a fire without using matches or gasoline then you get alpha male points. Anyway, with this mental picture already established, the bar was set quite high for the festival I saw advertised.
After a week of planning, Sunday morning came and three bus tickets had been purchased to go to the small village of Kolyvan, which is about 40km outside of the Novosibirsk. Gabi was running late which was no surprise to me since that girl would be late to her own funeral, so it was just the two of us. The bus ride itself was uneventful, and we arrive in Kolyvan in about an hour. There were a few people also going to this festival and once we arrived, no one knew where to go. I was thinking that since the festival was so big and old, surely there would be signs...ha, silly me, for a moment I forgot where I was. No one actually puts up useful signs, only one small one which you can only see if you're on the street of the festival. After asking about five different people we pointed in the proper direction. At some point we made friends with a babushka who was also going the festival. I found her to her to be delightful. Since we had to walk about kilometer, she decided to tell us about a winter folklore festival which she had been to last year.
Finally, the moment of truth, we found the tiny sign and saw some tents, and we had arrived! I sent an excited text to Gabi and then I let my eyes take in the sights around me...
Once I got over my shock and tried to shoo away the gloom that accompanies shock and disillusionment, I tried to find the positive. The positive was this- Russian hippies! The festival was calm and relaxed, as you can see, lots of people were running around half naked, not that I blame them since it was remarkably hot that day. In true hippie style, there were drum circles everywhere, and people doing questionable yoga, people selling trinkets to protect auras and henna tattoos. In retrospect, I should have gotten a henna tattoo since I've never had one before. No one was drinking and almost no one smoked, so it was clean and calm.
After an hour, my other friend Maria, showed up. She was little more prepared that I was and came with blankets to sit on, my only preparation was to bring Mohitos and water. After spending another hour desperately trying to enjoy the bad music and overall laziness of the 'festival' Maria saved me by offering to show me how to make a flower garland. Now I can safely say that I've picked wild flowers and made an interesting piece of head gear.
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