Music is not a revolution

"Slavic Bazaar" and other summer festivals

While in the village of Emmaus in the Tver region, a large rock festival took place quietly and peacefully, without disturbing either public or artistic peace, with a couple of headliners and a mass of little-known groups (including “Pilgrim” by Moscow City Duma deputy Andrei Kovalev, who sang the album “ Glory to Russia!” to the scolding of a bored audience), and in the Ryazan region, for reasons vaguely reminiscent of political ones, the most branded festival “Invasion” did not take place; absolute bliss reigned at the “Slavic Bazaar” in Vitebsk.

It began with the arrival of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko in the city with an inspection and a special award for Sofia Rotaru (“Through art - to peace and mutual understanding”), and continued with the Days of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, the mythical union state and Moscow. For some reason, a greeting was announced from Boris Gryzlov, who informed the festival audience in writing that if at the level of the union state there was the same warm and friendly atmosphere of mutual understanding as at the “Bazaar”, everyone would have united long ago and would never separate again. The action ended on Tuesday evening with the most friendly awarding of the winners of the competition for young pop singers (22 participants from 19 countries in total). The jury's votes were counted directly during the contestants' performances, displayed on an electronic scoreboard, and the winner was already known before any official ceremony. The distribution of elephants took place to cheerful applause from captivated spectators. The Grand Prix and 10 thousand dollars were received by 17-year-old representative of Ukraine Natasha Krasnyanskaya, who, upon receiving her winnings, said the sacramental “I’m shocked!” A blue and yellow scarf hung around the girl’s neck, but passions of a geopolitical nature did not flare up, as is customary around Eurovision. A cute imitation of the Euro format that has been popular for 50 years in a row - an international competition of variety singers (in this case with a Slavic accent) - is increasingly captivating its audience with a dizzyingly sweet mania of unity, and not at all with patriotic competition.

Here everyone - contestants, guests, headliners like Patricia Kaas (also a kindred spirit) with a dog and a nameless brunette escort - grows into a lush, monolithic and blooming pop body, shimmering in the sun and in the rain, like a kind giant jellyfish: and Sofia Rotaru (God knows what nationality and citizenship), and Valery Leontyev, and Larisa Dolina, and Verka Serduchka, who seemed to have insulted Russia (and therefore, probably, her sister Belarus) at that same Eurovision. And a certain Georgy Koldun, a Belarusian, the older brother of Dima Koldun, who seems to have been nominated, again, for Eurovision. And Marija Serifovic, the proud Serbian woman who won in Europe with her courageous “Prayer”. And Boris Moiseev, behind whose mighty shoulders any national flag can fly, because the point here, at the Bazaar, is not the severity of patriotic pity, but the beauty of patriotic satisfaction.

But in any case, it turns out that “golim pop music” - not aging, not getting younger - is quite capable, if necessary, of serving any political interests: mainly of a statist-patriotic kind, but with any vector (suffering or pleasure). It’s not rock music at all, actually completely harmless in these days, but either there’s something wrong with its background (some kind of democratic, even revolutionary), or it’s just finally become clear that it’s such, even if it sings about “Glory to Russia”, is capable of serving only the interests of beer, and its consumers still won’t vote, even if they die.

And so it turned out that the Ryazan cell of United Russia, for pre-election purposes of populist cajoling of pensioners - an electoral minority that is now successfully playing the role of the majority - began collecting signatures against the holding of the almost ready-made "Invasion" festival. After which Ryazan governor Georgy Shpak, who has a rather murky relationship with United Russia (he loves it, she doesn’t, he joined, but the situation is still precarious), announced the cancellation of the youth festival of thunder, beer, dirt and freedom. No one was hurt. Other summer rock festivals have not bothered anyone and are going ahead, gathering equal numbers of the vacationing public and the currently training riot police.

Meanwhile, in political propaganda projects, the number of rockers, compared to the previous election situation, has decreased to almost zero. If earlier “Nashi” used to buy Zemfira for fun (who, however, later repented a hundred times, chirping something about the impossibility of selling one’s soul), now they are accepting Alsou into “United Russia” - also childish babble, but still pop , capable of, if not delighting, then not greatly irritating a large voting soul.

Rock on the barricades of election campaigns is a thing of the past. The present is the mead-beer of the pensioner stage, a gentle May in spite of any weather and a skating rink of party projects, gently but firmly trampling the regional fields in the interests of the grandmother and grandfather, while the granddaughter and the bug cheerfully chew their turnips where they give them.

Yulia BEDEROVA