November 14, 2010  

By Laura Christian / Western Herald

Russian music, cuisine and art were on show for the 15th annual Russian Festival, which took place on Western Michigan University’s main campus on Saturday, Nov. 13. 

The Russian Festival had between 600 and 700 guests, along with 226 volunteers and performers to operate and provide entertainment during the event. It took place in WMU’s Fetzer Center from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The festival was dedicated to former Kalamazoo Mayor Robert Jones who died in October.

“Robert Jones and his wife Callie Baskerville-Jones traveled to Pushkin to celebrate with Pushkin and St. Petersburg the 300th anniversary of the city of St. Petersburg and that was in 2003. We dedicated the festival to him in his honor,” Helen Palleschi, co-director of the festival, said.

This year’s festival has been the biggest one yet, Palleschi said.

“It’s been the largest festival we’ve ever had in attendance and also in our vendor traffic and silent auction,” Palleschi said. “We’ve had a full musical day starting from 10:30 [a.m.] with the embassy choir and then we’ve had a concert every hour, on the hour, all day long through 4 o’clock [p.m.].”

The event also included an author’s presentation from Robert Alexander, two performances of “The Malachite Goddess” from Battle Creek, Mich.’s Marshall Academy, and a room open for attendees to play chess throughout the day.

The festival began 15 years ago by the Kalamazoo Pushkin Partnership to celebrate Russian arts and culture, Palleschi said.

“The Pushkin Partnership was formed in 1992,” Palleschi said. “It’s a partnership between the city of Kalamazoo and the city of Pushkin, Russia, and it’s a sister-city type of partnership. It’s all based on the personal relationships between the people of Kalamazoo and the people of Russia. We really promote a strong bond of international friendship and that’s why we are pleased when people from Russia visit Kalamazoo.”

The festival has grown year to year, gaining more speakers, music, art and vendors. 

In the past, one room or auditorium during the festival would be designated for lectures throughout the entire day. This year, Judith Rypma, the director of the Russian Studies Conference and author of the play “The Malachite Goddess,” organized the educational presentations on a different day to give guests more time to enjoy the increasing number of activities during the festival.

Friday’s events included educational sessions arranged by Rympa, Palleschi said.

“It was well attended and I think we’ll continue to do that,” Rypma said. “As you can see, there is so much going on that for people to have time to sit and listen to lectures in the middle of all the other festival stuff is very difficult.”

The festival saw contributions from many groups, including the Library of Congress.

“The Open World [Leadership] Program is a grant made possible through the Library of Congress,” Palleschi said. “They give money for exchanges of Russian professionals studying various aspects of our culture and government and this group was studying the educational system.”

Vendors also made the festivities possible.

“We have vendors from Ann Arbor, Chicago, [and] local vendors bringing goods from, of course, Russia, and other places,” Aaron Canfield, vendor coordinator for the festival, said.

“I’m very happy with being involved with the festival,” Canfield said. “I think it’s a nice thing for our community to have 15 years of the same festival [going] every year.”

Vyacheslav Moshkalo, counselor of the Russian Embassy, visited WMU during the educational programming and spoke about “The Need for Cultural Diplomacy is Growing.”

“The fact that we have someone here from the Cultural Attaché of the Embassy of the Russian Federation is absolutely phenomenal that we were able to get the person who is in second command to the ambassador to the United States,” Rypma said. 

People travel from all over to attend the festival.

“It’s really about people-to-people relationships, I think, and we’ve established a great relationship with the people of Pushkin and people who are interested in Russia and in American-Russian friendships,” Rypma said.

The Pushkin Partnership promotes an international friendship in more ways than the festival, such as having members travel to Russia.

“This summer, we had 16 people from Kalamazoo visit Russia and celebrate the city of Pushkin’s 300thanniversary. With that celebration we were presented to City Hall, we marched in the parade of celebration and we also had a booth in the park [where we were] telling about our sister city. We really enjoyed the week of celebration [for] their 300th anniversary in June this year,” Palleschi said. “We have people from Kalamazoo who regularly travel to Russia, Saint Petersburg and Pushkin, and are instrumental in fostering relationships such as student exchanges and professional exchanges. We enjoy hosting our Russian friends when they come and they are excellent hosts when we go there too.”

To find more information on the festival, Russian Studies Conference and the Kalamazoo-Pushkin Partnership, visit www.RussianFestival.org. The organization meets on a monthly basis at the Oshtemo Branch Library, beginning Jan. 3, 2011. Call Nancy Helmic with any questions or comments at 269-323-2345.

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