In the modest Okulovka (Novgorod region), the rock festival "Kinoproby" has died down. The event dedicated to the 55th anniversary of Viktor Tsoi shook the county town

Okulovka - a town along the railway, a dot on the map - suddenly became the leader of regional rock with a powerful and hitherto unexplored potential. Ostap Bender dreamed of making Vasyuki the chess capital and the center of the universe. Why is Okulovka worse?

About Okulovka outside the Novgorod region, if they know, then only that it is somewhere between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Boarded-up huts and a general store with graffiti, funeral services. Five-story buildings here look like skyscrapers hanging over private houses. 12 thousand people live here. The pride of local officials is the Splat toothpaste factory.

Tsoi at the station

Preparing for a rock festival gave rise to pipe dreams. “Money on water and kebabs can be cut down in one evening more than in the whole year,” Okulov people were advised on social networks.

- What does Tsoi have to do with Okulovka? — scratches hair Dmitry from St. Petersburg, shaking himself out of the train with a friend.

Elderberry in the garden, Tsoi in Okulovka. The idol, cast in bronze, for some reason on a motorcycle and barefoot, meets visitors at the station. They tried to put this monument in St. Petersburg, then Moscow refused it. Locals say that even Malaya Vishera turned up her nose from the monument, and Okulovka sheltered her.

It is difficult in the capitals: there are regulations, agreements, and the monument was ridiculed, wounded the soul of the master. But do not disappear the same sculpture! The monument singer works for the image of Okulovka: since there is a statue, then Choi at least “was” here.

Despite the rain, the audience in leather jackets and bandanas “sawing selfies” with the rock idol for the “me and Vitya” frame. Rocker Alexei Gorshenev ( brother of Mikhail, the former leader of the rock group "Korol i Shut", who died suddenly on the night of July 18-19, 2013. - Ed.) in an interview with the Novgorod portal said that the monument to Tsoi impressed him, but it would be better if they portrayed a singer on a horse, "because he rode a horse, but he didn't ride a motorcycle."

“Tsoi has nothing to do with Okulovka,” the taxi driver Andrey laughs.

The head of the Okulovsky municipal district, Sergei Kuzmin, persists with resentment:

Choi lived and sang in the Soviet Union. We all come from there, we remember his songs, we appreciate him. Why only St. Petersburg can hold such concerts? Why is he better than Okulovka? Everyone was in Okulovka! It is impossible to travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow and not visit Okulovka - that's one thing. Secondly, there is a legend in Okulovka that Tsoi still stayed with us, spent the night in a local hostel, sang ... I can’t confirm or deny, but it exists, and people believe in it.

Raisa Zheltukhina is a teacher at the choir studio, whose students performed at the festival. He says the girls liked Tsoi's songs. Raisa Sergeevna flirts, calling herself "ancient", but admits that she was imbued with Tsoi's work. And I am happy that such a grandiose event is taking place in Okulovka. The bronze singer on a motorcycle didn't surprise her. The only concern is security: there are terrorist attacks in the country, and there is an oil depot next to the airfield.

“But I am a person who believes in power,” she admits. - So, both the monument and the festival are needed!

The place for the statue was chosen by the sculptor himself, whom Kuzmin called "our good friend Alexei Blagovestnov." According to the head, after the installation of the monument, a group of people who are not indifferent to Okulovka decided to give money to the festival. He did not name names: patrons, they say, do not like PR, especially since there are entirely creative elite and entrepreneurs.

Ceramic artist Oleg Sharafutdinov also admits the idea that Tsoi “spent the night somewhere” in Okulovka. Oleg participated in the auction before the festival and hoped that his souvenirs would be sold out. Ceramic candles, a photo in a frame, Tsoi in a heart ... Alas, the people walked past.

- I listened to Tsoi on cassettes. He cut netsuke. There was a movie on TV, they say, he was preparing for death: he cut out a demon that cannot be portrayed. So he died ... - the artist reflects.

The genius of the place

The idea of ​​the festival was proposed by an entrepreneur from St. Petersburg Igor Siliverstov. In 2015, he presented Okulovka with a monument to Tsoi. This idea didn't bother him at all. There is a monument to a legendary man - a folk myth will also sprout.

“There is Lenin Street in Okulovka, but this does not mean that he was born there,” Siliverstov is not lost. - Well, he was not in Okulovka, although there is some story that he traveled with Grebenshchikov by rail and spent the night here.

Siliverstov is glad that more than 1,000 people have been involved in the preparation of the festival. He prefers to call financial assistance not sponsorship, but partnership, and does not specify how much money was spent on this: the main group of invested people are “altruists for the sake of the future.”

“My goal is to popularize my small homeland,” the businessman says. - We must get away from the village sludge with half-drunk people. A new bus has been launched, a festival has been organized, and the locals need to get involved. And they are amoebic. It's time for the Okulovites to free themselves from the "shackles of tsarism."

The question of Novaya Gazeta about how to get to the festival off-road amazed him.

- Well, people somehow got there! The roads are bad, but there are. If roads are made, the position of the locals will not change and the joy of life will not appear. If you make roads better, there will be more accidents.

Roerich and company

“You don’t want little Miklukho-Maclay, the symbol of Okulovka?” - a lively presenter invites to a charity auction before the festival.

The monument to the traveler provokes questions. Why is Miklouho-Maclay in over the knee boots, and not in shorts and sandals, since he was traveling in New Guinea? Maybe the sculptor adapted it to the local off-road? By the way, far-sighted music lovers, waving flags, marched to the festival in boots, and even in rubber boots along local roads.

In Okulovka they joke: "We now have a genius for every square meter." The local museum bears the name of a native of these parts Miklouho-Maclay. Nicholas Roerich lived and worked in Okulovka, where his son Yuri, a well-known orientalist, was born. And if so, the Roerich Center is needed here, in which, according to Igor Siliverstov, they are going to invest 3 billion rubles. And there is a place - a railway depot.

— Whether it will be the Roerich Center or the museum of great travelers is a question at the stage of discussion. We set a goal - to create a cultural object on the site of the old station in 1851, - Sergey Kuzmin shares his plans.

According to him, there is no money for the project yet, but there are potential investors.

And recently, the keen eyes of the authorities spotted the trace of the artist Isaac Levitan on the Okulovskaya land. On June 16, a memorial sign was opened here in honor of the fact that the master was visiting here and wrote several works. In social networks, locals reflect: “There is a connection between the installation of the monument to V. Tsoi and the holding of a grandiose rock festival for our city. If at one time a monument to the great agricultural scientist N.I. Zheleznov, the International Agro-Industrial Fair could be held this year not in St. Petersburg, but in Okulovka.”

Off-road with the wind

Locals drive famously over their potholes. My bewilderment about the roads amuses them: are they potholes?

- Don't buckle up! taxi drivers in Okulovka told me three times. - We do not have traffic lights, and we agreed with the traffic cops a long time ago.

Novgorodians write in social networks: it is dangerous to go to Okulovka by car! And they are surprised: they started a festival, invited guests, but you can’t get to them. A week before the festival, the coordinator of the Novgorod branch of the LDPR even filed a lawsuit: he demanded to ban the festival, citing concern for fellow citizens on broken roads. Say, there have been so many accidents in six months, and the crowd will tumble down - you will not end up with trouble. The logic, of course, is ironclad: not to repair the road, but to ban the festival.

- Vitya, happy birthday! - guests of the city celebrate the birthday of the idol in the Relax cafe opposite Pyaterochka.

At the stand of the institution with the entourage of a dining room with claims, quotes from the message of V.V. Putin to the Federal Assembly and a poster warning about video surveillance. Relaxation is caught under simple motives: "don't let me go-ah", "sad moon", "blond beast-ah-ah-ah". What is Choi here?

However, Okulovka managed to surprise - a lot of people came, mainly from Novgorod, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. From Moscow - very few. Although the organizers managed to lure even the stars - "Alisa", "ChaiF", "Pilot" ... The vice-governor of the Novgorod region Olga Kolotilova in a black leather jacket congratulated the townspeople on the holiday, issuing the cry "Oh-hu!" in a folkloric way. The people giggled. The mood was fiery. Moreover, the organizers promised to put "Invasion" behind the belt in a year.

Maria Bashmakova - for the "New"

Novgorod region — St. Petersburg