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“Sholokhov Spring” is a People’s Holiday…

On Sunday of May, 24, the twenty-fourth “Sholokhov Spring”, an all-Russia holiday, devoted to the 104^th anniversary of the national favourite writer, the great and an ordinary citizen of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, had come to an end. It is very symbolic that the author of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” was born on the Day of Kirill and Mephodiy, on the Day of the Slav Literature and Culture.

The holiday preceded another remarkable date: in July the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve will be 25.

On these days there were open for the guests and residents of the stanitsa all the Museum Structures and sites – historic, memorial, landscape, which make up a unique “Open Air Novel”: a village of Kruzhilinskiy, the stanitsas of Karghinskaya and Vyoshenskaya, the villages of  Kalininskiy, Lebyazhiy, Pleshaki, the natural sites connected with the names of the writer and the personages of his books – rivers, meadows, lakes, woods and, finally, the residents of the Sholokhov land, the Upper Don Cossacks, among whom Mikhail Alexandrovich searched for and found the prototypes for the images of his books.

Annually in this “novel” new pages appear: the Cossack estate of the early XX century in Kruzhilinskiy, a tour and exhibition centre “The People’s House”, a stable of the Museum-Reserve… This year the Museum also pleased the visitors with a new structure: a workshop for traditional arts and crafts with a souvenir shop attached, where one can buy articles of Cossack everyday life – pottery, Don wattle articles and unique souvenirs for memory about the Museum and stanitsa.

On Thursday of May, 21, in Vyoshenskaya the last preparations for the holiday went on, there came to completion the stages at the stanitsa’s square by the church, at the square near the Administration House and the main one – a Big Stage on the Don. There were heard busy sounds of hammering, motor-vans coming, a crane derrick moving to and fro: on the square a whole “khutor” (“village”) of “kurens” (“houses”) was setting up (the setting, however, could contest real village houses). “The khutor” comprised the “kurens” from Kasharskiy, Tarasovskiy, Oblivskiy, Kamenskiy, Millerovskiy, Bokovskiy, Verkhnedonskoy, Chertkovskiy districts. Each of them welcomed the guests with a table laid with Cossack viands, the best folk performances, thus presenting the cultural peculiarities of their districts.

The holiday started on Friday, 22. In the morning in Stanitsa Karghinskaya near the house of M.A. Sholokhov a folk festivity of residents and guests of Sholokhov Spring took place, and in the afternoon at the Vyoshenskaya central square the children began their show “Vyoshenskiye Vesnushki”.

This year the children literary and folklore holiday was participated by more than twenty amateur groups from the Volgograd Region, Shakhty, Bokovskiy and Verkhnedonskoy districts, and the young performers of the Sholokhov District. Every item of the concert program aroused a stormy applause of the audience. Most successful were the folk dances and songs, artistic reciting of Sholokhov’s works by the winners in the reciting contest “Our Sholokhov”.

The viewers enjoyed the performance of the dancers from the Bokovskaya art school, the Children art school from Mikhailovka of the Volgograd Region, from school № 23 and Children music school named after Balakirev from Shakhty. The children from the Vyoshenskiy Palace of Culture, the Sholokhov District Centre of the extracurricular work, Vyoshenskaya art school were as successful as their guests in singing and dancing. Very nice were the singers and dancers from the Verkhnedonskoy District. Well done!

At night in the Palace of Culture there was held a ceremonial session. The audience was greeted by the Chairman of the Culture Committee of the RF State Duma G.P. Ivliyev, the chairman of the Legislative Meeting of the Rostov Region V.E. Deryabkin, the Rostov Region Minister of Culture S.I. Vasiliyeva, the head of the Sholokhov District Administration A.G. Kramskov, the director of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve A.M. Sholokhov, the president of the association “Lermontov Heritage”, the director of the Serednikovo Museum-Estate M.Y. Lermontov.

The concert was participated by the best performers from the 90(!) creative folk groups, that had come to the festival. The viewers enjoyed the wonderful dance group “Ulybka” (“smile”) of the State Children Philharmonic from the Volgograd Region, the State Song and Dance Group “Volzhskiye Kazaki” (“the Volga Cossacks”) from Samara, the Folk Dance Group “Barvy Luganshchiny” (“flowers of the Lugansk land”) from Lugansk, the Song and Dance Group “Umarina” from Mordovia, the Folk Group “Untsukul” of the People’s Club from the Untsukul District of the Daghestan Republic, the Group of the Old Cossack Song from Kazakhstan.

Particularly successful was the Group of the Old Cossack Song “Buzuluk” from the Volgograd Region (the leader is Yakov Ivanov). If Sholokhov were alive, he would be sure to appreciate this famous group which had preserved for us an authentic manner of the Upper Don Cossack singing…

The pride of our region – the State Academic Song and Dance Group of the Don Cossacks from the Rostov Region Philharmonic – is faithful to the order of the great countryman-writer: to introduce the best folk songs and dances to our native and foreign viewers. The Group is always awaited at the festival to bring pleasure by its delightful performance.

At the ceremonial session in the Palace of Culture one more surprise awaited the audience: the native land of Sholokhov was visited by Pavel Polunin, who 50 years before had acted a homeless boy Vanya in the film of Serghey Bondarchuk screened after the story “The Fate of a Man”. The touching film scene of Andrey Sokolov’s confession: “Vanya, do you know, who I am?” moved many of the people to tears. This way the stanitsa met with Vanyushka Sokolov – Pavel Eugeniyevich Polunin, now an engineer from Under Moscow.

In the morning of May, 23, the holiday went on with a mirthful reveille and a procession of the holiday-makers along the streets of Vyoshenskaya towards its centre. Here, in the alleys of the park there spread a “Town of Artisans” – a fair of Cossack arts and crafts and articles of the folk trades. You could choose anything you liked: shawls, crockery, Cossack hats, felt cloaks, sabres, toys, pictures, baskets, wicker furniture, famous Cossack milk pottery – you were dazzled…

The stages had been occupied by the performers dancing and singing, the festivity had involved everyone! A contest “A Perky Kuren” was going on bringing out roars of laughter from the crowd. Jokes, facetious sayings, merry dancing… What a fun! The Cossacks from Oblivskaya danced themselves over so that it was a wonder, how their heels didn’t bust off!

Following the holiday opening ceremony the official delegation laid flowers to the bust monument of M.A. Sholokhov at the embankment and on the tomb of the writer in his estate.

The whole day the visitors were walking and walking to the memorial estate where the writer and his wife Mariya Petrovna were buried.

As well, the very popular places of interest were the House-Museum in 103 Sholokhov Street, the Literary Museum, the exhibitions in the “People’s House”, the stable of the Museum.

Meanwhile at the stanitsa’s square a wonderful bookselling laid out, and at the stadium there was held a football championship of the north Rostov Region. The winner was the team “Upper Don” from Stanitsa Kazanskaya.

A night came. The crowds of people started moving towards the river Don, where at 21.00 a gala-concert began on the Big Stage. Sparkling talents were displayed by the performers from the towns of Shakhty, Rostov-on-Don, Novocherkassk, Taganrog, Volgodonsk, Bataisk and from Neklinovskiy District. Particularly successful were the groups presenting the authentic folk song: the groups “Volnitsa” (“freeman”) of Alexander Venglevskiy, “Pravoslavnyi Don” (“the orthodox Don”) of Ghennadiy Vechyorkin, “Zarnitsa”  (“summer lightning”) of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve(the leader is Valentina Koshkina), “Sterkh” and “Sokoly Kreposti” (“eagles of the fortress”) from the Stavropol Region, the group of the Antipovskiy rural House of Culture from the Sholokhov District, the Mrykhovskiy Folk Cossack chorus (the leader is Olga Ponomaryova). Thanks to them our culture, our traditions are preserved.

And finally – a firework! The “Sholokhov Spring” fireworks have no equal. The rapture of the young people about this pyrotechnic miracle could hardly be framed in words.

A bright clamorous disco was the stanitsa’s square from night till morning.

On Sunday, 24, at the race-course on the outskirts of the stanitsa equestrian sport competitions took place. The horsemen from Rostov-on-Don, Millerovo, Byelaya Kalitva, Azov, Oktyabrskiy (rural) District displayed an excellent fancy-riding. It was a very beautiful and exciting spectacle!

For the whole three days numerous mass media representatives had been working hard. The journalists for the “Vesti” program of the “Russia” TV channel, the Rostov teleradio companies of “Don-TR”, “South Region”, “Tele-IKS”, TRC “37 Channel” (Novocherkassk), Millerovo television, Volgograd Regional Radio, for the journals of “Don” and “National Priorities” from Rostov, and “Okhotnichiy Dvor” (“hunting yard’) from Moscow, for the newspapers of “Argumenty i Fakty (“arguments and facts”) on the Don”, “Kultura Dona” (“the Don culture”), “Volgogradskaya Pravda”, “Kommuna” (Voronezh), for district and urban newspapers of the Volgograd, Voronezh, Rostov regions tried their best to get everywhere to transmit to the TV-viewers, radio-listeners and readers the atmosphere of the “Sholokhov Spring”.

We, the workers of the information department of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve, also worked hard: we prepared our own on-the-spot commentaries about the holiday, answered the questions of the numerous guests, helped our mass-media colleagues to find the right way in the flow of the turbulent mirthful events of the holiday. Our Press-Centre on these days tried its best to unite and support the journalist community under “the flag” of the Museum-Reserve. We hope we had succeeded it.

Next year you are welcome to the 25^th jubilee “Sholokhov Spring”, to the 105^th anniversary of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, the great Russian writer, who glorified our native land. See you!

S. Gribanov