Between 17 and 19 June, the 26th original song festival Parus Nadezhdy was held in the Shilov forest on the bank of Voronezh water reservoir. This year, the festival gathered about 3,000 participants from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Belgorod, Lipetsk, Tambov, Stary Oskol, Rossosh, Khokhol, Novaya Usman, Ramon, Bobrov, Donetsk, and Lugansk. The festival, as usual, was organised by a VSU lecturer and journalist, Larisa Diakova, and a VSU graduate and geologist, Alexander Demidenko.
The jury consisted of well-known poets and song-writers: Alexey Vitakov, Vladimir Polyakov, Vladimir Kapger (Moscow), Andrey Dnakeev (Rostov-on-Don), Viktor Gavrilenko (Novoshakhtinsk), Stella Zubkova (Lugansk), Alexey Beshulya (Donetsk), Svetlana Polunina, Anatoly Glybin, Olga Dvoryadkina, Yury Korchagin (Voronezh), and Gennady Timoshenko (Voronezh).
During the three days of the festival, poets, musicians, and composers took part in creative workshops. A non-stop concert included performances by the guests of the festival, laureates of previous festivals, and members of the jury and the organising committee. All visitors could participate using a “Free microphone”. Young poets and singers could take part in the workshop “Children sing and write”, and artists organised an exhibition "Singers through the eyes of the children”.
A traditional “Fire of the Faculty of Journalism” was held at midnight by a graduate of the faculty, Anna Zhukova. The event gathered students, graduates, and prospective students of the Faculty of Journalism, as well as students from other faculties, including the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, the Faculty of Philology, the Faculty of History, the Faculty of Geography, Geoecology, and Tourism, and the Faculty of Physics.
Parus Nadezhdy traditionally gathers geologists who graduated from VSU in 1979. Alexander Melitsky, Head of the North-Western Emergency Service and a VSU graduate, came to the festival all the way from St. Petersburg.
“The festival has a unique atmosphere. People of different ages come here to share their talents: they recite poems, sing their own songs, present new books, albums, and projects. Children here get to know what good poetry is, they listen to wonderful meaningful songs. This is very important. It’s important to listen to proper songs. Our contestants sing “A ballad of Alpine riflemen” by Vladimir Vysotsky, “Fann Mountains” by Yuri Vizbor, “A meeting with hope” by Bulat Okudzhava, “A blue crab” by Yuri Ustoniv and Vladislav Krapivinas well as songs by Alexander Gorodnitsky, Viktor Berkovsky, and Oleg Mityaev. I believe that by listening to these songs, children will grow up to be very kind and civilized. It’s just bound to happen”, said Larisa Diakova.
“We have a real camp site here. Our guests know how to pitch tents and make fire pits so as not to harm the landscape. Our volunteers (secondary school students, university and college students) clean up the place before and after the festival. We teach children to take care of the environment and protect it. After the festival the place is left perfectly clean”, said the director of the festival, Alexander Demidemko.
