Between 17 and 19 June, 21st original song festival Parus Nadezhdy" ("Sail of Hope") was held in Shilov forest on the bank of Voronezh water reservoir. The event gathered about three thousand participants and guests from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Chita, Omsk, Rostov, Belgorod, Lipetsk, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. As of tradition, the festival was organised with support of Voronezh State University by a VSU lecturer and journalist, Larisa Diakova, and a VSU graduate Alexander Demidenko – the all-time heads of the club-studio “Parus”.
During the three days, poets, musicians, and composers took part in creative workshops of the festival. The audience had a chance to enjoy both concerts of the contestants and guests, laureates of previous festivals, and members of the jury. All visitors could appear publicly using a “Free microphone”.
The festival had a very diverse programme for children. Young poets and singers could take part in the workshop “Children sing and write”. Anna Bolkhoeva, a VSU graduate, organised a traditional “Linguistic Run”. Natalia Dashkova, a child psychologist, journalist, and VSU graduate, gathered children and schoolchildren at the "Hedgehog's meadow" creative laboratory where children drew singers, made handrcrafted items, and did puzzles. Just as usual, the programme for children was supported by the Children’s Foundation. Marina Rozenfeld, an Associate Professor of the Faculty of Philology of Voronezh State University, and Tatiana Timoshina, a PhD in Philology, gave a lecture "Word Territory” for lovers of the Russian language.
At midnight, after the fireworks, students and graduates of the Faculty of Journalism of Voronezh State University gathered by the Big Fire of the The Journalist Faculty to sing and remember the time when they were students.
