14th annual Russian Festival coming to the Fetzer Center

By Laura Citino
Western Herald

Russia proves to be more than just the birthplace of vodka and modelesque tennis players as the 14th Annual Kalamazoo Russian Festival comes to the Fetzer Center on Saturday.

The festival is a culmination of Russia Week, a full week devoted to celebrating Russian culture in Kalamazoo, Portage, and Battle Creek.

“It’s really just a day to celebrate Russian culture,” said Katy Koppy, festival public relations coordinator. “And culture is a really big word. There’s just so much included in that.”

The festivities include the presentation of various Russian foods, souvenirs and crafts for sale, a variety of musicians ranging from classical to folk to a children’s choir, and a dramatic production out of the Russian canon of folklore performed by a high school group from Marshall, Mich.

A new addition to the festival this year includes a room entirely devoted to playing chess. While the game might not be commonly associated with Russia, it is an important part of Russian culture. Several championship winners and chess grandmasters, such as Gary Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, are Russian natives.
No previous knowledge of Russian language or culture is required to participate in the myriad of events offered throughout Russia Week. All that is needed is an interest in, and a respect for, this rich culture.

“Lots of people come to the events who speak absolutely no Russian and have never been to Russia, but still come out and enjoy themselves,” Koppy said.

Several facets of WMU are also co-sponsoring the event, such as the Haenicke Institute for Global Education, the Department of English, and the School of Music. The Fetzer Center on campus has been the home of the Russian Festival for the past four years, according to Koppy.

“A lot of the cultural diversity in Kalamazoo centers around the university,” Koppy said.

The main sponsor of the event is the Kalamazoo-Pushkin Partnership, an organization built around the sister-city partnership between the cities of Kalamazoo and Pushkin, Russia.

The partnership began in 1992 after the Iron Curtain fell in Europe, as Russia began to open itself up again to cultural exchange and commerce. Visitors from Kalamazoo, including nurses and doctors, visited the city of Pushkin and saw how the city was left after the fall of communism.

“Their whole system was broken down,” Koppy said.

This year is the first year that the Russian Festival has taken place as a week-long series of events. Other events have included visits from renowned musicians from the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music in Russia, as well as folk concerts offered in conjunction with the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music.

Tonight, Russia Week continues with a reading by Robert Alexander, author of “The Kitchen Boy” and “Rasputin’s Daughter,” historical novels set at the time of the Russian Revolution. The reading will take place in WMU’s Brown Hall in Room 2028, and will include a reception afterwards.

Throughout the years, the festival has always attracted the sizable Russian community in Kalamazoo, as well as Americans of different backgrounds who are simply interested in Russian culture. Koppy attributes this to an innate interest in Russia through its close historical ties to the United States, even if it was not always the friendliest relationship.

“Part of the romance about Russian culture is that the United States and the former Soviet Union were adversaries for such a long time. It used to be the forbidden, the exotic,” Koppy said.

“Now they can all connect, and people find that Russians and Americans have a lot in common. There’s a lot about Russian culture, too, that is just a little bit different. It’s just enough to be interesting.”

The 14th Annual Kalamazoo Russian Festival will take place at the Fetzer Center on WMU’s campus on Saturday, Nov. 21 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $8 for the general public and $4 for students with a valid ID.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Nov 18 2009. Filed under A & E, Campus, Weekend Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
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