Blagoveshchensk turns into the center of the festival life of the Far East

In the Far East, before our eyes, there is a “point of attraction” of festival life, securing the status of a cultural center for the capital of the Amur Region. Why do stars of world and Russian cinema go to Blagoveshchensk, while directors “hold back” new films until they are shown there? What potential does a city located on the border with China have? And how can the Amur River, which geographically separates two friendly states, simultaneously connect them culturally? Olga Smirnova, head of the Amur Regional Philharmonic, told about all this to MK.

– Director of the Philharmonic – yes, legally it is. And in addition, another very important and significant role for me is the operator for organizing tours of federal projects in the Amur Region, ”Olga said at the very beginning of the conversation. — I am the Executive Director of the Amur Autumn Film and Theater Festival, which turned 20 this year. Thanks to the festival, Alexander Shirvindt, Lyudmila Gurchenko, Vasily Lanovoy, Gina Lollobrigida, Kim Kiduk, Pierre Richard and many others visited the Amur Region. This year, the main event at the festival was the tour of the Vakhtangov Theatre. The halls were packed!

— Such a small city — and such a demand for art. How is the “Annunciation phenomenon” explained?

“For twenty years, the festival has brought up its audience. Blagoveshchensk has a unique geographical position. Here you are driving along the Trans-Siberian Railway, passing the Belogorsk station, and then a branch, another 108 kilometers – and already at the very border of our country. Seven hundred meters across the river from us is the Chinese city of Heihe. We wave to each other with our neighbors. But logistically, this is a difficult story, and very often the arrival of large teams in the Far East passed by for us. It was very difficult to build a tour map, however, in 2002, Sergei Novozhilov, secretary of the Union of Cinematographers of the Russian Federation, was not afraid to start something new and interesting in our land. Since then, every year in September, during the golden season, three hundred people come to us. These are actors, directors, cinematographers, critics, journalists, jury members. We are the only ones in the country who hold both a competition of two film programs and a competition of private performances at the same time. The jury chairmen in different years were Yuri Yakovlev, Lev Durov, Kirill Razlogov, Vladimir Etush, Alexander Proshkin, Alla Surikova, Roman Viktyuk, Svetlana Druzhinina, Sergey Shakurov, Vladimir Grammatikov, Alexander Shirvindt, Vera Glagoleva, Vladimir Shevelkov, Andrey Sokolov. This year the cinema jury was headed by Alexander Kott, the jury of private performances was headed by Aristarkh Livanov.

— Why is Amur Autumn so important — and is it the only project?

– With all this political situation and nuances, Kinotavr is gone, and we can really be considered the main premiere festival in Russia. Because we have 43 films in the competition: 12 in feature films and 24 in short films – these are all premieres. The festival declared itself so brightly that the directors and producers are waiting and not giving the premieres, leaving them for the Amur Region.

Our second project is the Russian-Chinese Fair of Culture and Art. What is its uniqueness? Russia and China are two banks of the same river. But we perceive the Amur not as a river that separates our countries, but as a unifying one. In June of every year (this year for the twelfth time), federal teams come to us, a fair of masters of arts and crafts takes place, an exchange of wedding traditions, communication between the small peoples of the North – our Evenks and Chinese Orochons, and an exchange of delegations of writers.

Events on both banks are taking place simultaneously – until recently, we maintained a visa-free regime with China, it was possible to come, buy a ticket and move. Yes, the borders are now closed. But a year ago, another touching tradition appeared: we meet on ships on the fairway of the river, without crossing the border, and sing songs to each other. Plus, Blagoveshchensk becomes a point of attraction from October 1 thanks to the Amur Wave classical music festival.

– What are the challenges facing the culture of the region? What will happen next?

“The most important thing now is to keep what we have. It is fundamentally important for us that federal teams reach the Amur Region. Because only after you bring the artists from the capital to us, you begin to understand that you are in the same emotional and cultural field with Moscow.

Spectators from Sakhalin, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Yakutia are already coming to see us. Previously, we were, as it were, at the end of the Far Eastern Federal District, but after some time, Buryatia also joined Transbaikalia. And purely territorially, we have become the center.

– What signal are we sending, communicating with you today, to the capital from Blagoveshchensk, which is seven and a half thousand kilometers away from us?

– Don’t be afraid to go. Everyone who visited us speaks about this – Alexey Guskov, Lyudmila Maksakova, Irina Kupchenko. Irina Petrovna said: if I were a man, then maybe I would have left for the Far East. One can only envy that you live here.

Yes, it’s hard to fly for 8 hours, but when you fly and you understand that there and with what zeal people strive for art, the flight turns out to be justified. Yes, there was a time when theaters were focused on the Central part of Russia and Europe, but at some point, it seems to me, we lost a bit the feeling of our big country.

— And what kind of cultural infrastructure does Blagoveshchensk have?

– We have a philharmonic society, a drama theater, a puppet theater and a large cultural center, where the main touring activity takes place. In 2013, when the Pyatnitsky choir came to us, we had a terrible flood. The concert was supposed to take place on the main square of the city, but rain was expected – it would be impossible to work with live musical instruments. Two hours before the event, we decided to move it to the concert hall. So, a police squad was working in the building to prevent a crush: people were coming in huge streams. We had to open windows and doors, and people stood under the windows and in the lobby listening to music.