1994

Город фестивальный

Further ways to develop festival movement were discussed at the "round table" meeting "Music Festival of the World at "Slavianski Bazaar" organized on the festival days. The chairperson of the meeting was Mrs. Figen Chakmak (Turkey) - vice president of FIDOF. Other people involved in the work of the "round table" - Stoayan Troitskiy (Macedonia, festival "Makfest-shtip"), Miki Evremovich (Yugoslavia, "Belgrade Spring"), NAdezhda Babkina (Russia, forum "Nizhegorodskaya Karusel"), Natalia Primak (Russia, "Stupen k Parnasu"), Dono Tsvetkov (Bulgaria, "Otkritie", "Hit Rock"), Ludovit Beladich (Slovakia, "Rock-pop Bratislava"), Makhmud Esambaev, President of International Union of Variety Arts Performers).

11 festival concerts were held in the amphitheatre, 10 - at the Yakub Kolas Theater, "Disco Bazaar" hosted 8 concerts and the same number of concerts took place on the stage located at the Victory Square.

During the festival 6 art exhibitions were opened to the public and one of them presented works of the First International Chagall Pain-air participants.

Artists from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, the USA, Turkey, and France came to "Slavianski Bazaar - 94".

9 meetings were held at the Professional Music Club. There were 12 press-conferences, 8 "Rendez-vous with a Star" meetings and 2 meetings with creative people.

The festival opened with a big concert where a lot of stars performed - Nina Brodskaya, Nadezhda Babkina, Phillip Kirkorov, Larisa Dolina, and Tamara Gverdziteli.

The main stage of the festival - the amphitheatre - was decorated by a well-known Moscow artist and stage decorator Boris Krasnov.

Группа «Сябры»

The Belarusian ensemble "Pesnyary" celebrated its 25th anniversary with a jubilee concert at the festival. This concert became one of the main events of the festival. A lot of letters of congratulation came from many corners of the world and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. For the first time at the festival the Belarusian State Academic Drama Theatre after Yakub Kolas hosted the National Cultures Centre. It was the place where the concerts of national delegations and different events devoted to Culture Days of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Poland took place.

Polish Culture Day was held for the first time. Yakub Kolas Theatre was open from early morning to present the exhibitions organized there - "Music Posters", "Caricatures of Cinema and Music Stars". The works of famous masters of graphic art I.Kulchinisk and E. Manchak showed a good deal of mastership and originality. The Polish delegation arrived here with a new film describing the life in the post-war Warsaw called "Seal-Ring with Eagle in Crown". There were so many events in the programme of the Polish Culture Day that it was very difficult for people to choose where to go. Culture Palace of Trade Unions opened the photo exhibition "Following Chopin" with the works of the Polish artist Yanush Volinskiy.

Bulgarian Culture Day began with the press-conference "Bulgarian Music Culture". Journalists could ask Khristo Paskalev, a singer and composer, any questions they wanted at the "Rendez-vous with a Star". The Bulgarian film "Love Summer of a Scoundrel" was on at the "Spartak" and the day finished with the Concert of Phillip Kirkorov who said that "..he has Bulgarian surname and Russian soul".

At the festival Professional Music Club started to function. The festival concerts were broadcast by Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Polish TV companies and the overall broadcast time took 38.5 hours.

1994 "Gold Pen" award was given that time to Anna Khrustaliova, a correspondent of the Russian language newspaper "Estonia" for "..objetive and highly professional coverage of the International Festival "Slavianski Bazaar" in her articles "Nine Days of One Year". The second prize was given to the Ukrainian TV journalists Alexander Butko and Elena Furmanova for a TV-series about "Slavianski Bazaar - 94" in the category "For Promoting the Festival".

The system of choosing the jury at the Young Singers Competition also changed. Earlier the chairperson was chosen by the members of the jury, but in 1994 a contract was concluded with the chairperson, which was not the case before. That year this man was a very popular French composer Michel Legrand. No doubt this man became one of the most important figures of the festival. Besides estimating the young performers at the competition, he took part at the concerts himself. There was a meeting with him at the Professional Music Club and it was called "Night with Michel Legrand". It lasted from 00.00 till 6.00 am. Hundreds of thousands of people could enjoy that due to the TV programme "Royal Hunting".

There was a funny indecent connected with Michel Legrand. On the first day of the Young Singers Competition he estimated all the participants using the five grade system while the other members of the jury did it basing on the 10 grade system. Later in the interview he said that some of the participants could be given "5" but hardly any of them could get 10.

That was the year when the founders of the festival formed the International Corporation "Slavianski Bazaar".

Мишель Легран. Председатель жюри

Phillip Kirkorov came to the festival with his family. Besides his wife Alla Pugacheva and her daughter Kristina Orbakaite there was also the name of Phillip's father in the programme - a singer Bedros Kirkorov.

A new style for the festival was worked out by the artist Elena Kitaeva which was then the basis for developing the design for 11 types of posters. The texts on them were in multiple languages - Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish.

Two festival booklets were issued. One of them was quite a traditional for all festivals thing - description of festival parts. The other one was a summery of what had been done for the previous three years and it was in two languages Russian and English. The latter was illustrated with colour photos.

Three issues of the festival newspaper "Slavianski Bazaar" came out with the overall circulation 2000 copies. Vladimir Bazan was their editor.

It was also the first time when the folk groups from Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia had met at the festival in one joined project.

Some festival concerts really had very romantic names - "The Place of My First Dawn", "Wreath of Slavic Traditions", "Be Happy, People".

Алла Пугачёва

We can say that the most modest names for the concerts were "I am not a Rafael", "Let It be". But definitely those who invented the names like "Russian Hit", Slavic Stars", "I am Artist" were very much self confident.

At the "Slavianski Bazaar - 94" new films from Belarus, Bulgaria, Poland and Ukraine saw their first audience.

On the Ukrainian Culture Day there was the presentation of the book by Aleksey Kononenko "Characters of Slavic Mythology".

The exhibition of the photos by a Moscow photo artist Galina Smit "Those Cute Men" was a great success. The foreword to the booklet issued for the event said "This is like women perceive men".

Before 1994 Larisa Dolina had taken part in Vitebsk jazz festival, festivals of Polish Song, and "Slavianski Bazaar" festivals. In 1994 she arrived together with her daughter and she sang not only in the amphitheatre but also on the stage of "Disco Bazaar".

It was not only the festival of pop and folk music but also of classical music. Vitalis Rachkovskis performed the works of Frederick Chopin at his piano concert.

Народный мастер

At "Slavianski Bazaar-94" more festivals were admitted to FIDOF (International Organization of Festival Organizations) - "Otkritie", "Hit Rock" (Bulgaria), "Babkin Dom" (Russia).

Micki Evremovich was the only chess grand master who came to perform at the festival. He took part in the concerts and was a member of International Jury of Young Singers Competition.

At that festival 70th anniversary jubilee of Makhmud Esembaev, an academic of International Art Academy and a Hero of Social Labour, was celebrated.

All tickets to the concerts were also lottery tickets. There were five lucky ones and their numbers are the following: 206667, 201794, 449373, 584586, and 974900. They were awarded with different prizes like video and audio cassettes, record plates.

Barry Alibasov presented journalists with unique prizes. DJ Andrei Wolf got the award called "the most disgusting article about "Slavianski Bazaar", and Otar Kushanashvili was called "the nastiest person". A. Wolf got the prize because when writing about the amount of this prize he added one more zero.

A well known Italian firm "Coemar" installed light equipment at the festival. The Italians spoke highly of the quality of Belarusian optical devices. All light equipment had Belarusian lenses "Belomo".

Festival summer of 1994 was the hottest in the history of "Slavianski Bazaar". The temperature was + 30 almost all the time and a few days before the festival on July 16th the record temperature was registered - +32. On July 17th there was the strongest thunderstorm in the history of the city.