Slavic Russian folk Festival in Eugene, Oregon 2007

A Russian folk dance and music ensemble Barynya from New York performed at the Slavic Festival on Saturday, January 6th and Sunday, January 7th, 2007 in Eugene, Oregon. Festival was organized by Slavic Home www.slavichome.org

Yelena Ivashova is president of the Slavic Home, hostess of the festival. She made a choice to invite ensemble Barynya to Eugene, OR for the second year in a row. Slavic Home mission is to promote cultural diversity in the American community through a variety of programs that are closely related to Eastern European culture, life and education system.

Unlike the last year the travel was easy. Balalaikist Alex Siniavski was coming from Philadelphia, PA. He did not make it on the same day. As usual he arrived on Saturday 3 minutes before the show.

7-string guitarist Vadim Kolpakov was flying from Charlotta, NC, he was on time this time, everybody else were flying from New York. We had to change planes only two times on our way to Eugene. No broken legs or other injuries was reported.

We performed at the same stage as the last year.

The best job at the Russian Fest in Eugene, OR is to be a Russian Father Frost. It takes about 10 minutes to become one.

Our beautiful dancers Valentina Kvasova, Natalia Ejova and Ganna Makarova also participated in traditional Russian New Year'a tale (НОВОГОДНЯЯ СКАЗКА) about some scary things written in Portland, Oregon. It was our pleasure to be part of that. I felt like actors enjoyed the story as much as kids in the audience.

Valentina is performing some serious don-cossack magic upon 7-string guitar case of Vadim Kolpakov.

Famous contrabass balalaika player Leonid Bruk is famous not only because he likes to take pictures with beautiful dancers and musicians.

Everyone is looking for a friendship or love in Eugene. And everyone is finding it on every corner.

Musicians: Sergey Riabtsev (violin), Alex Siniavski (balalaika), Vadim Kolpakov (7-string guitar) and singer Sasha Menshikov are getting ready for the show

Ganna Makarova and Vadim Kolpakov are performing Gypsy Dance "Two Guitars"

Our friends from Russian dancer company "Canary" from Los Angeles, California, singer Sasha Menshikov and Valentina Kvasova also have joined Ganna and Vadim

Everything was great until M.N and Y.N have decided to bring thier own flavor into the evening

Everything went wrong after that

KGB people were drinking top water and recording closely every move. Furtunately they were not taking any actions. Most likely they were just waiting for some order from Moscow that never arrived

Ensemble Barynya in Eugene, Oregon - video

Watch this video on www.MySpace website

text - Mikhail Smirnov
photos - Leonid Bruk

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