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Cossack Dance Party in Sholokhov-Centre

During the Football World Cup Games, the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov gave the Rostov residents and guests a unique opportunity to see a real Cossack dance party and to learn how to dance a polka, padespan, “narechenku” and a krakowiak.

Every day the interactive area “Cossack Village” in Sholokhov-Centre gathered the Don capital residents and numerous tourists and fans from different parts of Russia and foreign countries to become viewers and participants of the interesting and bright activity.

The tradition of Cossack dance parties has a long standing history. Merry parties with songs, dances, games and round dances have long been held in Cossack stanitsas and villages, and by the turn of the XIX–XX centuries they were filled with individual high society dance elements, which “were brought” to the Don area by Cossack officers who served in big cities and in the capital.

The dance parties were played by Cossack orchestras including accordion, violin,tambourine, guitar, balalaika. The melodies usual for the high society parties were played in the traditional Cossack folk manner. All together the people “played” songs, danced the circular figures to polka, krakowiak, padespan, or polonaise.

In the “Cossack Village”, the dances-games and round dances gathered all in one circle: mischievous kids, respectable men and women, football fans wearing huge sombreros and funny fans’ caps. The interest for the Don Cossack traditions united the fans from different countries – Saudi Arabia, Brazil,Mexico, Argentina, Croatia, Iceland, Japan, China and many others. The public admired the Cossack songs performed by the famous Cossack ensembles “Volnitsa”, “Legenda”, “Pravoslavny Don”, applauded stormily to each of the songs and exclaimed in different languages.