News

News

Creative Impulse, Young Enthusiasm, Sports Passions

The holiday “Children Sholokhov Spring” in Stanitsa Karghinskaya, where the great writer spent his childhood and youth, and began his literary career, was joined by young performers, artists and handicraft masters from different parts of Russia. They were united by the love of literature, folk song and Sholokhov country.

For the second year the children holiday began at the Farmstead of T.A.Karghin, where there is the mill described in the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” and the cinematograph “Ideal”, where young Misha Sholokhov performed on stage in the 1920s.

A big part of the program was devoted to the Year of Theatre in Russia. Over four hundred young viewers saw theatre performances in Stanitsa Karghinskaya and Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya. The performances “Swan Geese” and “Little Friends of Belosnezhka” of the folk puppet theatre “Teremok” from Zimovniki the Rostov Region were shown on the stage of the “Ideal”. In the grain barn there was an exhibition “In the World of Fairy Tales”, where the children were shown theatre puppets – glove puppets, life-size puppets, rod puppets and marionettes. The author of the personage images and the sketches of costumes and puppets is Yelena Tkachenko, director of the theatre. The children admired the puppets and applauded the performers stormily.

In the People’s House of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov in Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, the young viewers were shown a merry and kind performance “Well Done, Mytsyk!” of the folk theatre “Volshebny Fonar” (Magic Lantern) from Taganrog (director Lyudmila Burlakova), which marks its 10th anniversary.

At the Farmstead of Timofey Karghin the children met with tame goats, pigeons and shy rabbits in the home zoo. Then the children played old Cossack games, enjoyed a carousel, giant steps, and a swing.

Boys made and launched rocket models, communicated at a distance using shortwave communication. Girls learned to weave, make marionette puppets, toys of coloured balls and apply face painting.

The Museum exposition in the open air “Cossack Grain Farming” told about the agricultural husbandry in the Don country last century, what crops are sown today and what products are made of them. The children were attracted by an unusual panel showing a Cossack woman with a loaf of bread: it consisted of corn,

wheat, rye, oats, lentils and other cereals. Anyone could complete the picture taking grains from the bag and filling in the blank areas. The museum workers told the children about the omens and folk traditions associated with the field works, about the types of inventory used for cultivating the earth and about house holding a hundred years ago, showed a prosak, a grokhot, a hand mill, which the young tourists used to grind grain into flour.

The tour was continued at the roller mill of Timofey Karghin; M.A.Sholokhov described this mill in his legendary novel. Here the visitors saw old mill equipment and learned about processing grain into flour using mechanisms. On that day the children visited the memorial house, where the Sholokhovs family lived in the 1920s, and the parish school, where the future writer studied during 1912–1914.

In the literary area “We are Reading Sholokhov”, in the centre of Stanitsa Karghinskaya, the schoolchildren of the Sholokhov, Bokovsky, Oblivsky, Verkhnedonskoy, Serafimovich districts read aloud the fragments of the works by Sholokhov. The pages of Sholokhov’s books came alive at the vernissage “The World of Sholokhov through Children’s Eyes”, where drawings and handicraft articles were shown. The viewers examined in details the works they liked: a Cossack yard in miniature, a figure of Ded Shchukar made of woolen threads, or a vintage knitted rug, a carved box, a wooden model of the Vyoshensky temple, and others.

The guests of “Children Sholokhov Spring” learned about the Cossack traditions, trained in the skills of martial arts: throwing a spear and a knife, cutting rods with a sabre, lassoing a horse, and learned how to sit down in the saddle correctly.

The concert areas presented over four hundred young performers from different parts of the Rostov and Volgograd regions, from Moscow and the Republic of Adygea.

On the sports ground of the Karghin school named after M.A.Sholokhov, for the first time in the history of the children spring holiday, a mini-football Cup tournament “Hopes of May” took place. It was joined by four teams of young football players from the Bokovsky District.

The young sportsmen were greeted by Oleg Etlukhov, sports master in boxing, Secretary of the Union of Russian Writers, Doctor of Economic Sciences, a professor. He wished the children a fair football fight and sports luck.

In between the games, the children and adults competed in ball juggling in place and in motion and did the Olympic quiz.

A creative impulse, young enthusiasm, sports passion became a wonderful start for the big All-Russian literary folklore holiday “Sholokhov Spring”.

Olga Karghina
Svetlana Usova