I did a count today. Since arriving back in Russia in May last year, today was the eleventh time I have been to a cultural festival of some sort. Add to that the Ket visit in 2008, and I am getting to be a seasoned cultural festival junkie.
Festivals are great places for meeting people and being noticed in a community. Today was no exception. Tuesday the 9th is the International Day of Indigenous Peoples. It was celebrated today in Baikit. They celebrated it in exactly the same way as all the other festivals I have been to, which means they are becoming quite predictable to me. Much of the time I suspect that there is a strong Russian influence in how they are run. Much of the time there is a local Russian government presence overseeing the event. The Sakha students festival was unique in that regard, in that they ran it totally by themselves in a private location. It had more of an independent flare to it. The Sakha are like that, they seem to have maintained their independent identity in a Russian dominated world.
So today, although I enjoyed the festival, I was a little more casual about the whole affair, and didn't mind if I missed out on some of it. We still made some contacts and got some phone numbers, including renewing acquaintances with people from the Sayan Ring festival. Then towards the end of it, the announcer spotted me, and pulled me up to introduce me to the whole town. "We met Paul at the Sayan Ring festival, he is here all the way from Australia. Can you imagine that!" I was able to respond with a greeting in Evenki, and let people know I was from the Australia with lots of wild kangaroos (not the one in Europe).
Togokon music group.
Yura on lead vocals and drum.
No festival is complete without games.
This boy is related to Yura. He comes from Surinda. Last year he performed at the day of the city in Krasnoyarsk.
Dance group from Vanavara, another village in Evenkiya.
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