What to expect from the Wild Mint festival in 2023

Tomorrow in the village of Bunyrevo, in the Aleksinsky district of the Tula region, the next Wild Mint festival begins. From point of view Igor Gavrilov, this is the most interesting open-air music forum still available in central Russia.

Having started developing the field in Bunyrevo several years ago, the creators of the Wild Mint festival immediately thought about building an all-season tourist facility. So when the festival returned last year after a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the audience found on the field not only stages, a food court and places for setting up tents, but also stationary cottages, a cafe, a music studio and paved alleys. Over the past year, the infrastructure has developed even more. People came to Wild Mint Camp for concerts, arranged quizzes, were accommodated in cottages. Something like a rock and roll camp site, an “island of normality” was formed, where you can escape at least for a while from the constantly changing chaotic reality.

During the pandemic, Wild Mint got more than other festivals. In 2021, the festival was canceled the night before the start. The organizers then announced losses of almost 100 million rubles. However, the Tula region returned part of the money, and in 2022 the festival stretched over two weekends, bringing together more than 36 thousand spectators in total (and this is in a situation where foreign artists and some of their Russian colleagues have lost access to domestic stages). According to the producer of “Wild Mint” Andrey Klyukin, at the moment half of the debts that have formed after the cancellation of 2021 have been closed. In 2024, he plans to free himself from this burden completely.

With worthy artists in 2023 is difficult. Foreigners do not plan to return to the Russian market yet, and the list of “banned” performers is growing. Nevertheless, the program of “Wild Mint” looks like in normal times the festival could compete with other industry players. Salvation for any festival at the present time looks like Leonid Agutin, who, despite denunciations and attacks (see Kommersant of June 10, 2022), remains on stage. The program of “Wild Mint” also includes Lumen from Ufa, for many personifying modern protest punk, the reggae group Alai Oli and the Georgian “mascot” of “Wild Mint” Mega Gogitidze. It will be no less interesting to watch the debutants of the festival: the organizers consider it their mission to search for new talents. Among those worth paying attention to this year are Palc, DenDerty, Your Parents’ Video Cassette, Button Bond, Vassa Zheleznova, Grizzly’s Suitcase, Balakir, and others.

An annual festival, an all-season space for creativity and recreation, a well-established talent search mechanism – all this forms a large loyal audience around Wild Mint, which can be effectively sold. Andrey Klyukin prefers other terms: “As for the definition of “sell,” after two years of the pandemic and that fatal cancellation, I got so used to a more than modest life that only creative tasks remained in my goals. Now I have moved here in general, and I have no other world. ”

In the other world, meanwhile, the fate of festivals develops in different ways. The Invasion festival, which was planned to be held from August 4 to 6, 2023 in the neighboring Kaluga region of Tula, has been postponed to 2024. The governor of the Kaluga region, Vladislav Shapsha, explained this decision by the initiative of local residents. In a message on his Telegram channel dated June 2, he referred to “discussions among the people of the region” and mentioned a “discussion” in which their opinions were voiced. What kind of discussion and what legal force it has, was not specified. But there was a clear wording: “Now is not the time for the Invasion.”

Vladislav Shapsha in his text did without the word “security”. The organizers of another major annual event – the Dobrofest festival, scheduled for June 29 – July 2, in their message about the cancellation of the festival dated June 6, referred precisely to security. The social networks of the festival said: “The issue of security during a major cultural event is incompatible with the current situation.”

After the cancellation of Invasion and Dobrofest, it was logical to expect that the entire festival summer would be derailed. However, last weekend, to the delight of St. Petersburg music lovers, the Stereoleto festival was held in the Sevcable Port space with the participation of Basta, Dolphin, Alliance and Lev Leshchenko. Either the authorities did not raise their hand to cancel the festival with the participation of the people’s artist, or the situation in St. Petersburg as a whole is healthier, but as a result, Stereoleto is the only festival that has never been canceled or rescheduled for all the years of its existence.

In all likelihood, ultimately the fate of each individual event is in the hands of local authorities. As Andrei Klyukin told Kommersant, his team went through all the meetings with the security forces and agreed on security measures: “All services in the region are aimed at work.”