World Festival of Youth and Students- an irregular festival of left-wing youth organizations, held since 1947. The organizers are the World Federation Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union Students (UIS). Since 1947, festivals have been held under the slogan "For Peace and Friendship", since 1968 - under the slogan "For Solidarity, Peace and Friendship"
To prepare for the festival, an International Preparatory Committee and national preparatory committees in the participating countries are being created. The festival program includes sport competitions By various types sports, political seminars and discussions, concerts, mass festivities, as well as the obligatory colorful procession of delegations. [ ]
Story
After the end of World War II (October-November 1945), a world conference of youth for peace was held in London. It was decided to create the World Federation of Democratic Youth and start holding world festivals of youth and students.
First world festival youth and students took place in 1947 in Prague. It was attended by 17 thousand people from 71 countries. This was followed by festivals in the capitals of the countries of Eastern Europe: Budapest (1949), Berlin (1951), Bucharest (1953) and Warsaw (1955). The first festivals were held every two years. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was an increase in the number of participants and the number of countries they represented. The number of participants by the mid-50s had increased to 30,000. They have already represented more than 100 countries.
The initial objectives of the festival were the struggle for peace, for the rights of youth, for the independence of peoples, and the promotion of internationalism. Communist, socialist and religious organizations. Representatives came to the festival a wide range youth organizations opposed to fascism and military dictatorships. Representatives of radical left organizations, including those outside the law in their countries, were allowed to participate. Particular attention was paid to the issue of the inadmissibility of the revival of fascism and the incitement of a new world war.
Festivals of youth and students provided the citizens of the host country with the opportunity to communicate live with foreigners and find out what really interests young people abroad. This did not always correspond to the tasks of the organizers, and sometimes even contradicted them. For example, after the VI festival 1957 , dudes, blackmailers appeared in the USSR, and a fashion arose to give children foreign names.
VI World Festival of 1957, held in Moscow, became the most massive throughout the history of the festival movement. It was attended by 34 thousand people. They represented 131 countries around the world, a record at the time. At subsequent festivals, the number of participants was smaller, but the record for the number of countries that were represented at the festival was broken.
Festivals were held not only in the territory of the socialist countries, and the program was often so informal that the result of the festival was the opposite of the expectations of the heads of the socialist delegations. In 1959 VII festival youth and students first held in a capitalist country in the capital of Austria, Vienna. Then the festival was hosted by Helsinki (1962) and Sofia (1968).
From the 1960s, the break between festivals began to increase to several years.
A break of 6 years between the festivals of 1962 and 1968, previously held every 2-3 years, is explained by the fact that in 1965 the IX festival was scheduled to be held in Algeria, which gained independence from France in 1962. All were carried out preparations, but in 1965 a military coup took place in Algeria, Houari Boumedienne came to power, proclaiming a course towards building a pragmatic economic and political system, taking into account Algerian specifics and without focusing on any samples. The country has a one-party system. IX festival was cancelled. It took place only three years later, in 1968, in the capital of Bulgaria - Sofia.
Delegates from the countries of capitalism and socialist camp, including those who entered into a military confrontation. For example, from the USA and North Korea.
In the 1940s - 1960s each new festival took place in new country. In 1973, the X World Festival of Youth and Students was held for the second time in Berlin. In the 1970s, the festival movement took on a pronounced pro-communist coloring.
In 1978 XI Festival first held in the Americas- in the capital of Cuba, Havana.
By the 1980s, the festival, conceived for free communication, had become a highly formalized event. At the XII World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Moscow in 1985, Soviet citizens who were not part of the delegations were not allowed to communicate with the guests of the festival, and the program was designed to minimize the communication of foreigners with random, unverified people.
In 1989, the XIII World Festival of Youth and Students broke two records. First, he first time in Asia. The capital of the DPRK, Pyongyang, hosted the guests of the festival. Secondly, this festival has become most representative- guests from 177 countries of the world participated in it. Especially for the festival, a grandiose stadium was built on the First of May for 150,000 people, which to this day remains the largest stadium on Earth.
As a result of the collapse of socialism in the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a the longest break- about 8 years. Thanks to the perseverance of WFDY member organizations and the support of the Cuban government, the festival movement was revived in the second half of the 1990s. In 1997, the XIV Festival took place in Havana. Formalism disappeared, the festival returned to its original goals.
In 2001, the XV festival was held in Algiers. This festival has become first held in Africa. Participated in this festival the smallest number of participants in the entire history of the festival movement - 6500 people.
The XVI World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Caracas (Venezuela) in 2005. It was attended by 17 thousand people from 144 countries.
The XVII festival was successfully held in Pretoria, South Africa on December 13-21, 2010, and the XVIII - in Ecuador in December 2013, bringing together over 8 thousand participants from 88 countries.
The next XIX Festival will be held in Russia in 2017. The decision to hold it was made at the international consultative meeting of the WFDY and international student organizations held in Moscow on February 7, 2016 at the request of Russian youth organizations - members of the WFDY. Only one of the WFDY's Russian member organizations, the Revolutionary Communist Union of Youth, refused to sign the application, voicing fears that government officials would try to turn the festival into an expression of loyalty. Russian authorities. Earlier, the application was supported by the administration of the President of Russia and the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, it was presented by the delegation of Rosmolodezh during the WFDY General Assembly in Cuba on November 10, 2015. The Russian Youth Union, the International Youth Center and others joined the application. holdings have not been determined.
Dates and venue of the Festival, as well as the logo and motto "For peace, solidarity and social justice, we fight against imperialism - by respecting our past, we are building our future!" were determined at the first meeting of the international preparatory committee in Caracas (Venezuela) on June 5, 2016. It was decided that the Festival will be held on October 14-22, 2017 in Moscow (the solemn parade of delegations) and Sochi (the festival itself).
Hymn
The musical emblem of the festival is the Anthem of the Democratic Youth of the World (music by Anatoly Novikov, text by Lev Oshanin). The anthem was first performed at the Strahov Stadium in Prague at the opening of the I festival.
Chronology
| № | date | Place | Participants | countries | Motto |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 25 - August 16, 1947 | 17 000 | 71 | “Youth, unite, forward to the future world!” | ||
| August 14-28, 1949 | 20 000 | 82 | "Youth, unite, forward to a future of peace, democracy, national independence and a better future for the people" | ||
| III | August 5-19, 1951 | 26 000 | 104 | "For peace and friendship - against nuclear weapons" | |
| August 2-16, 1953 | 30 000 | 111 | "For peace and friendship" | ||
| July 31 - August 14, 1955 | 30 000 | 114 | "For peace and friendship - against aggressive imperialist alliances" | ||
| July 28 - August 11, 1957 | 34 000 | 131 | "For peace and friendship" | ||
| VII | July 26 - August 4, 1959 | 18 000 | 112 | "For peace and friendship and peaceful coexistence" | |
| VIII | July 27 - August 5, 1962 | 18 000 | 137 | "For peace and friendship" | |
| July 28 - August 6, 1968 | 20 000 | 138 | "For Solidarity, Peace and Friendship" | ||
| X | July 28 - August 5, 1973 | 25 600 | 140 | ||
| XI | July 29 - August 7, 1978 | 18 500 | 145 | "For anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship" | |
| XII | July 27 - August 3, 1985 | 26 000 | 157 | "For anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship" | |
| XIII | July 1-8, 1989 | 22 000 | 177 | "For anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship" | |
| XIV | July 29 - August 5, 1997 | 12 325 | 136 | "For anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship" | |
| XV | August 8-16, 2001 | 6 500 | 110 | "Globalizing the struggle for peace, solidarity, development, against imperialism" | |
| XVI | August 4-19, 2005 | 17 000 | 144 | "For peace and solidarity, we fight against imperialism and war" | |
| XVII | December 13-21, 2010 | 15 000 | 126 | "For victory over imperialism, for world peace, solidarity and social change" | |
| XVIII | December 7 - 13, 2013 | 8 000 | 88 | "The youth united against imperialism, for world peace, solidarity and social change" | |
| XIX | October 14 - 22, 2017 | ~20 000 | ~150 | "For peace, solidarity and social justice, we fight against imperialism - by respecting our past, we are building our future!" |
The VI World Festival of Youth and Students opened on July 28, 1957 in Moscow.
The guests of the festival were 34,000 people from 131 countries of the world.
The festival took place for two weeks and became in every sense a significant and explosive event for Soviet boys and girls - and the most massive in its history. He fell in the middle of the Khrushchev thaw and was remembered for his openness.
The festival has been in preparation for two years. It was an action planned by the authorities to "liberate" the people from the Stalinist ideology. Abroad arrived in shock: the iron curtain is opening!
The idea of the Moscow festival was supported by many statesmen West - even Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, the politicians of Greece, Italy, Finland, France, not to mention the pro-Soviet-minded presidents of Egypt, Indonesia, Syria, the leaders of Afghanistan, Burma, Nepal and Ceylon.
34,000 guests from 131 countries came to the Moscow Festival of Youth and Students, and 2,000 journalists were accredited in the press center. At that time in the USSR the word "foreigner" was synonymous with the words "enemy", "spy", with the exception of representatives of the countries of the socialist camp, but even they were treated with suspicion. Any foreigner immediately became exotic. And suddenly thousands of people from all over the world, of all colors and shades, appeared on the streets of Moscow.
Thanks to the festival, the Druzhba park in Khimki, the Tourist hotel complex, the stadium in Luzhniki and Ikarus buses appeared in the capital. The Kremlin, guarded from enemies and friends day and night, became completely free for visits, youth balls were arranged in the Faceted Chamber. The Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after Gorky suddenly canceled the entrance fee.
The festival consisted of a huge number of planned events and unorganized and uncontrolled communication of people. Black Africa was in special favor. Journalists rushed to the black envoys of Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia (then these countries had just liberated themselves from colonial dependence), and Moscow girls hurried to them “in an international impulse”. The Arabs were also singled out, since Egypt had just gained national freedom after the war.
Thanks to the festival, KVN arose, transforming from a specially invented program “Evening of funny questions from the TV editorial staff “Festivalnaya”. They discussed the recently banned Impressionists, about Ciurlionis, Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, about Ilya Glazunov, who was becoming fashionable, with his illustrations for the works of Dostoevsky, not entirely desirable in the USSR. The festival turned heads Soviet people on fashion, behavior, lifestyle and has accelerated the course of change. Khrushchev's "thaw", dissident movement, a breakthrough in literature and painting - it all began shortly after the festival.
In 1985, Moscow again hosted participants and guests of the Youth Festival, already the twelfth. The festival became one of the first high-profile international actions of the perestroika era. With his help Soviet authorities hoped to change for the better the gloomy image of the USSR - the "Evil Empire". A lot of money was spent on the event. Moscow was cleared of unfriendly elements, roads and streets were put in order. But they tried to keep the guests of the festival away from the Muscovites: only people who had passed the Komsomol and party checks were allowed to communicate with the guests. That unity, which was in 1957 during the first Moscow festival, no longer happened.
“BREACH IN THE IRON CURTAIN”
There are events that do not fade in the emotional memory, are not amenable to bitter and caustic reassessment, warming the soul in the most dank "cursed" days. Remembering which, you envy yourself - was it really in your life ?! Those that belonged to history and, at the same time, forever determined your private, little interesting fate.
50 years ago, on a July evening in 1957, feeling the prick of an unknown but piercing awl, I ran out of the house onto Pushkinskaya Street. Three minutes later I found myself on Gorky Street, nicknamed by our generation "Broadway", but no less Soviet, pompous and orderly for that. This one is almost night hour in its unshakably sovereign atmosphere something unusual was seen - joyful excitement, some kind of excitement. From Manezhnaya Square right along the pavement, ignoring the horns of cars and police trills, a crowd was rising, never seen on the streets of Moscow. Motley, almost carnivally dressed up, irreverent, cheerful, ringing with guitars, beating drums, blowing pipes, screaming, singing, dancing on the go, intoxicated not from wine, but from freedom and the purest and best feelings, unfamiliar, unknown, multilingual - and to chills, to pain dear. At that moment, I realized that dreams really do come true, that my post-war, courtyard youth coincided with the youth of the century. The world festival of youth and students "For peace and friendship between peoples" has come to Moscow.
(…)
To live in a closed country means to perceive the geographic map of the Earth as something like a map of the starry sky, realizing that going to Paris is just as impossible as flying to Mars. It means looking at a foreigner you happen to meet on the street and really like a Martian - with a mixed feeling of curiosity and fear. This means that one should forget about relatives and even acquaintances who do not live in a specific country, but in some generalized, suspicious "abroad", as if about an indecent dream. And, finally, what kind of beret or plaid shirt can you be beaten on the street as a dude, a bearer of an alien ideology, alien manners and mores, and simply for resemblance to characters from the Crocodile magazine. By the way, he was almost the only source of acquaintance with foreign life. Not counting the "Foreign Newsreel", where it was allowed to see the Eiffel Tower, a New York skyscraper or a Madrid bullfight for a few seconds. I know people who watched each issue of this film magazine fifteen times. In fact, they had the opportunity to look through the keyhole behind the "Iron Curtain".
And in this very "iron curtain" a huge gap was made, the name of which is the festival of youth and students. I saw it with my own eyes already on the very morning that came after the unprecedented evening. Unheard of morning!
The festival traveled around Moscow in buses and open trucks (there were not enough buses for all the guests). He sailed along the Garden Ring, which was an endless human sea. All of Moscow, simple, just coming to its senses after military cards and queues, not yet forgotten about the fight against cosmopolitanism and cringing, somehow dressed up, barely starting to get out of basements and communal apartments, stood on the pavement, sidewalks, roofs of houses and pulled to the passing guests, hands yearning to shake the same warm human hands. Geographic map has taken concrete form. The world really turned out to be amazingly diverse. And in this diversity of races, characters, languages, customs, clothes, melodies and rhythms - amazingly united in the desire to live, communicate and get to know each other. Now such words and intentions seem banal. Then, in the midst of cold war"They were perceived as an extraordinary personal discovery. Our country opened the world, joining the whole human race. And the world opened our country ... I don’t remember if I ate something in those days and went to bed. I was just happy. Everything 14 days, from morning to evening.
ABOUT one evening we brought a group of Frenchmen to visit our classmate, in a huge Moscow communal apartment, converted from former numbers. Somehow, the whole old courtyard found out that young Parisians were being received in the apartment on the second floor, and people poured in with pies, jam, of course, bottles and other gifts of a simple Russian heart. The French women roared out loud. By the way, all this happened on Pushechnaya Street, a hundred meters from famous building, past which Muscovites in those years passed, reflexively lowering their eyes and accelerating their pace.
Now I think that in the summer of 1957 the reinforced concrete regulation of Soviet life was irrevocably shaken. It became impossible to control everything in the world: tastes, fashion, everyday habits, music on the air. On the ideas, emotions, songs and dances of the festival, my generation was transformed in a matter of days. All Soviet freethinkers, all connoisseurs of jazz and contemporary art, mods and polyglots have their origin in the summer of 57th.
No subsequent aggravation of political relations between East and West, ideological studies and persecution could drown out the independent spirit of the festival. But it was conceived as a purely ideological event: under the guise of the struggle for peace and friendship between peoples, bourgeois foundations were undermined, the chains of colonialism were broken, and communist ideals were affirmed. But, firstly, the struggle for peace really united. And secondly, as you know, living life always wider and brighter than ideology. Both the American peace fighter in Texas jeans, and the French communist, who looked like a flaneur from the Grand Boulevards, and the turner from FIAT, indistinguishable from all the characters of neorealism, were unconsciously punching holes in the Iron Curtain. The Suslov ideologists did not have the strength to patch them up.
From the memoirs of the writer Anatoly Makarov
PIGEONS FOR THE FESTIVAL
Among those who directly prepared the festival is Vladlen Krivosheev, now a scientist, candidate of economic sciences, and then an instructor in the organizational department of the Moscow City Komsomol Committee. Vladlen Mikhailovich was entrusted with the most, perhaps, exotic task ...
In 1955 (two years before the festival), instructor Krivosheev was summoned by Mikhail Davydov, then First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Komsomol: “From now on, you are freed from all your affairs. Take care of the pigeons." Doves?
Another man was sitting in the office, as it turned out, - Iosif Tumanov (later -
People's Artist of the USSR, well-known director of mass folk spectacles). “The most important task! Davydov continued. “We need 100,000 pigeons in two years!” And Tumanov got something like a brochure with stamps and visas -
scenario of the festival events.
... In 1949, the First World Peace Congress was held in Paris. An emblem was required. The famous Pablo Picasso, obviously remembering ancient legends, depicted a dove with an olive branch in its beak. So the dove became a symbol of peace. Festivals of youth and students (not only ours) were held under the motto "For peace and friendship between peoples!". The opening ceremony traditionally began with a solemn passage through the stadium of the delegations of the participating countries. And traditionally, this passage preceded the take-off of the pigeon flock: the pigeons, as it were, began the whole holiday.
But the flock was not enough for Tumanov. According to his idea, one after another over the Luzhniki Stadium (which were hastily built for the festival) three waves of pigeons were supposed to soar - white, followed by red, followed by gray ones. Since everything had already been approved "at the top", Davydov emphasized: "The script is law for us."
These three waves Krivosheev had to prepare.
– And see that it doesn’t happen like in Warsaw! - strictly warned the "first".
The Warsaw Festival has just ended. The pigeons screwed up there - in direct and figurative sense. The Poles carried a huge casket to the center of the stadium, opened the lid, believing that the birds would shoot a white torch into the sky. But they did not rush, but crawled out and began to wander around the stadium, interfering with the movement of the columns ... Shame, in a word.
First of all, it was decided: all sorts of exquisite chegrashs, puffers, turmans - on the side. We put on ordinary postal ones - they are able to provide the right flight at the right time. It's just that they need to withdraw the required amount in two years. By the way, how much? The figure of 100 thousand was clearly taken from the ceiling, but, oddly enough, it turned out to be appropriate. We need a guaranteed strong and hardy bird, don't we? Consequently, if we withdraw 100,000, then from this quantity, due to rejection, we will get 40,000 of these young, strong ones by the required time. And two years is fine too. If you start work now, then by 1957 the third generation will just be on the wing: specimens that are guaranteed to be suitable for the operation.
Orders went to the factories: "The Moscow city committee of the Komsomol ... in execution ... we ask for assistance ...". Dovecotes were erected at enterprises. The Moscow Regional Executive Committee was obliged to supply fodder ...
And yet they took off - 40,000 pigeons!
True, the day before there was a whole operation to bring birds to a poultry farm near Moscow, sorting - the weak aside! - seating in specially designed boxes (4000 boxes with 10 nests in each), in which the winged poor fellows had to endure 6 hours (!), Saving strength for the flight. Then two columns of trucks, accompanied by traffic police cars, moved to Moscow at four in the morning in order to be at the stadium 2 hours before the start. And there 4,000 releasers (participants of the "live background" on the eastern stand) were waiting for a signal ... In general, there is a lot to tell here ... But if you have never seen tens of thousands of pigeons soaring at the same time - and from below they all looked white, and therefore it seemed that boiling-snowy lava splashed into the sky - know that you have lost a lot in life. Newsreel footage preserved this moment. The stands gasped, the audience jumped up from their seats, applauded ...
Original taken from mgsupgs at the 1957 Festival
VI World Festival of Youth and Students - a festival that opened on July 28, 1957 in Moscow,
I, personally, didn’t even find it in the project, but in the next 85 years I raked in full measure.
Someday I'll post a photo ... "Yankees get out of Grenada-Commies out of Afghanistan" ... They covered them from cameras with posters ..
And the guests of that festival were 34,000 people from 131 countries of the world. The slogan of the festival is "For Peace and Friendship".
The festival has been in preparation for two years. It was an action planned by the authorities to "liberate" the people from the Stalinist ideology. Abroad arrived in shock: the iron curtain is opening! The idea of the Moscow festival was supported by many Western statesmen - even Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, the politicians of Greece, Italy, Finland, France, not to mention the pro-Soviet presidents of Egypt, Indonesia, Syria, the leaders of Afghanistan, Burma, Nepal and Ceylon.
Thanks to the festival, the Druzhba park in Khimki, the Tourist hotel complex, the stadium in Luzhniki and Ikarus buses appeared in the capital. The first cars GAZ-21 "Volga" and the first "rafik" - the minibus RAF-10 "Festival" were produced for the event. The Kremlin, guarded from enemies and friends day and night, became completely free for visits, youth balls were arranged in the Faceted Chamber. The Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after Gorky suddenly canceled the entrance fee.
The festival consisted of a huge number of planned events and unorganized and uncontrolled communication of people. Black Africa was in special favor. Journalists rushed to the black envoys of Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia (then these countries had just liberated themselves from colonial dependence), and Moscow girls hurried to them “in an international impulse”. The Arabs were also singled out, since Egypt had just gained national freedom after the war.
Thanks to the festival, KVN arose, transforming from a specially invented program “An Evening of Merry Questions” by the TV editorial “Festivalnaya”. They discussed about the recently banned Impressionists, about Churlionis, Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, about Ilya Glazunov, who was coming into fashion with his illustrations for the works of Dostoevsky, not entirely desirable in the USSR.The festival turned the views of Soviet people on fashion, behavior, lifestyle and accelerated the course of change.Khrushchev's "thaw", the dissident movement, a breakthrough in literature and painting - all this began shortly after the festival.
The symbol of the youth forum, which was attended by delegates from the leftist youth organizations of the world, was the Dove of Peace, invented by Pablo Picasso. The festival has become in every sense a significant and explosive event for boys and girls - and the most massive in its history. He fell in the middle of the Khrushchev thaw and was remembered for his openness. The foreigners who arrived freely communicated with Muscovites, this was not pursued. The Moscow Kremlin and Gorky Park were opened for free visiting. More than eight hundred events were held during the two festival weeks.
At the opening ceremony in Luzhniki, 3,200 athletes performed a dance and sports number, and 25,000 pigeons were released from the eastern stand.
In Moscow, amateur pigeons were specially exempted from work. One hundred thousand birds were raised for the festival and the most healthy and mobile birds were selected.
In the main event - the rally "For Peace and Friendship!" half a million people participated in Manezhnaya Square and adjacent streets.
For two weeks there was mass fraternization in the streets and parks. Pre-scheduled regulations were violated, events dragged on past midnight and smoothly flowed into festivities until dawn.
Those who knew languages rejoiced at the opportunity to show off their erudition and talk about the recently banned Impressionists, Hemingway and Remarque. The guests were shocked by the erudition of the interlocutors who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and young Soviet intellectuals were shocked by the fact that foreigners do not appreciate the happiness of freely reading any authors and do not know anything about them.
Someone got by with a minimum of words. A year later, a lot of dark-skinned children appeared in Moscow, who were called just that: "children of the festival." Their mothers were not sent to the camps "for having an affair with a foreigner", as would have happened not so long ago.
Ensemble "Druzhba" and Edita Piekha with the program "Songs of the peoples of the world" won gold medal and the title of laureates of the festival. The song “Moscow Evenings” performed at the closing ceremony, performed by Vladimir Troshin and Edita Piekha, became a calling card THE USSR.
Fashion for jeans, sneakers, rock and roll and badminton began to spread in the country. Musical super hits “Rock around the clock”, “Hymn of Democratic Youth”, “If the guys of the whole Earth…” and others became popular.
dedicated to the festival Feature Film“Girl with a Guitar”: in the music store where the saleswoman Tanya Fedosova (Spanish: Lyudmila Gurchenko) works, preparations are underway for the festival, and at the end of the film, the festival delegates perform at a concert in the store (Tanya also performs with some of them). Other films dedicated to the festival are Sailor from the Comet, Chain Reaction, Road to Paradise.
"Spark", 1957, No. 1, January.
“The year 1957 has come, the year of the festival. Let's take a look at what will happen in Moscow at the VI World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship, and visit those who are preparing for the holiday today .... There are not many pigeons in our photo. But this is just a rehearsal. You see the pigeons from the “Kauchuk” plant, under the very sky, at the height of a ten-story city building, the Komsomol members and the youth of the plant equipped an excellent room for the birds with central heating and hot water.”
The festival consisted of a huge number of planned events and simple unorganized and uncontrolled communication of people. During the day and in the evening the delegations were busy at meetings and speeches. But late in the evening and at night, free communication began. Naturally, the authorities tried to establish control over the contacts, but they did not have enough hands, as the followers turned out to be a drop in the ocean. The weather was excellent, and crowds of people literally flooded the main highways. To better see what was happening, people climbed onto the ledges and roofs of houses. From the influx of curious people, the roof of the Shcherbakov department store, located on Kolkhoznaya Square, at the corner of Sretenka and Garden Ring, collapsed. After that, the department store was repaired for a long time, opened for a short time, and then demolished. At night, people “gathered in the center of Moscow, on the roadway of Gorky Street, near the Moscow City Council, on Pushkinskaya Square, on Marx Avenue.
Disputes arose at every turn and for any reason, except, perhaps, politics. Firstly, they were afraid, and most importantly, she pure form weren't very interested. However, in fact, any disputes had a political character, whether it was literature, painting, fashion, not to mention music, especially jazz. They discussed the Impressionists, who until recently were forbidden in our country, Ciurlionis, Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, about Ilya Glazunov, who was becoming fashionable, with his illustrations for the works of Dostoevsky, not entirely desirable in the USSR. In fact, these were not so much disputes as the first attempts to freely express their opinions to others and defend them. I remember how on bright nights crowds of people stood on the pavement of Gorky Street, in the center of each of them several people were discussing something heatedly. The rest, having surrounded them in a dense ring, listened, gathering their wits, getting used to this very process - a free exchange of opinions. These were the first lessons of democracy, the first experience of getting rid of fear, the first, completely new experiences of uncontrolled communication.
During the festival, a kind of sexual revolution took place in Moscow. Young people, and especially girls, seem to have broken the chain. The puritanical Soviet society suddenly witnessed such events that no one expected and which even jarred me, then an ardent supporter of free sex. I was struck by the forms and scale of what was happening. There are several reasons at work here. Beautiful warm weather, general euphoria of freedom, friendship and love, craving for foreigners and, most importantly, the accumulated protest against all this puritanical pedagogy, deceitful and unnatural.
By night, when it was getting dark, crowds of girls from all over Moscow made their way to the places where foreign delegations lived. These were student hostels and hotels on the outskirts of the city. One of these typical places was the hotel complex "Tourist", built for VDNKh. At that time it was the edge of Moscow, then there were collective farm fields. It was impossible for the girls to break into the buildings, since everything was cordoned off by security officers and vigilantes. But no one could forbid foreign guests to leave the hotels.
"Spark", 1957, No. 33 August.
“... A big and free conversation is going on today at the festival. And it was this frank, friendly exchange of opinions that confused some of the bourgeois journalists who came to the festival. Their newspapers seem to demand " iron curtain”, scandals, “communist propaganda”. And there is none of that on the streets. At the festival there are dancing, singing, laughter and a big serious conversation. The conversation people need."
Events developed with the greatest possible speed. No courtship, no false coquetry. The newly formed couples retired into the darkness, into the fields, into the bushes, knowing exactly what they would do immediately. They didn't go particularly far, so the space around them was quite densely filled, but in the dark it didn't matter. The image of a mysterious, shy and chaste Russian girl-Komsomol member not only collapsed, but rather enriched with some new, unexpected feature - reckless, desperate debauchery.
The reaction of the units of the moral and ideological order was not long in coming. Flying squads on trucks were urgently organized, equipped with lighting fixtures, scissors and hairdressing machines. When trucks with vigilantes, according to the raid plan, unexpectedly left for the fields and turned on all the headlights and lamps, then the true scale of what was happening loomed. They did not touch the foreigners, they dealt only with the girls, and since there were too many of them, the combatants had no time to find out their identity, or even to simply detain them. Some of the hair of the caught lovers of night adventures was cut off, such a “clearing” was made, after which the girl had only one thing left - to cut her hair bald. Immediately after the festival, the residents of Moscow showed a particularly keen interest in girls who wore a tightly tied scarf on their heads ... Many dramas happened in families, in educational institutions and at enterprises, where it was more difficult to hide the absence of hair than just on the street, in the subway or trolleybus. It turned out to be even more difficult to hide the babies that appeared nine months later, often not like their own mother either in skin color or in the shape of their eyes.
International friendship knew no bounds, and when the wave of enthusiasm subsided, on the sand, wet from girlish tears, numerous “children of the festival” remained like nimble crabs - it was tight with contraceptives in the Land of Soviets.
In a summary statistical extract prepared for the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. It recorded the birth of 531 post-festival children (of all races). For five million (then) Moscow - vanishingly small.
Naturally, I aspired to visit first of all where foreign musicians. A huge platform was built on Pushkin Square, on which “day and evening there were concerts of the most different teams. It was there that I first saw an English skiffle ensemble, and, in my opinion, led by Lonnie Donigan himself. The impression was rather strange. Elderly and very young people played together, using along with the usual acoustic guitars various household and improvised items such as double bass cans, washboards, pots, etc. In the Soviet press, there was a reaction to this genre in the form of statements like: “Here’s what the bourgeoisie has come to, they play on washboards.” But then everything fell silent, since the roots of the "skiffle" are folk, and folklore in the USSR was sacred.
The most fashionable and hard-to-reach at the festival were jazz concerts. There was a special stir around them, fueled by the authorities, who tried to somehow classify them by distributing passes among the Komsomol activists. It took a lot of dexterity to get into such concerts.
PS. In 1985, Moscow again hosted participants and guests of the Youth Festival, already the twelfth. The festival became one of the first high-profile international actions of the perestroika era. With its help, the Soviet authorities hoped to change for the better the gloomy image of the USSR - the "Evil Empire". A lot of money was spent on the event. Moscow was cleared of unfriendly elements, roads and streets were put in order. But they tried to keep the guests of the festival away from the Muscovites: only people who had passed the Komsomol and party checks were allowed to communicate with the guests. That unity, which was in 1957 during the first Moscow festival, no longer happened.
Spectators of the carnival procession XIX World Youth Festival welcome Brazilian column. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta
The World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow opened with a carnival procession from Vasilyevsky Descent along the Kremlin, Prechistenskaya, Frunzenskaya and Luzhnetskaya embankments to the Luzhniki stadium, where a festive concert awaited the participants of the procession and guests.
It is expected that 20 thousand people from more than 180 countries will take part in the festival.
The first festival of youth and students was held in Moscow in 1957 and then 34 thousand people from 131 countries of the world took part in it.
We decided to compare these two holidays in our photo essay.
Participants of the festival are sent to the Central Stadium named after V.I. Lenin. British delegation during the festival procession. Moscow, 1957. Photo: Valentin Mastyukov and Alexander Konkov / TASS Newsreel 
Spectators. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
A group of delegates from Indonesia and Tunisia among Muscovites at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition during the VI World Festival of Youth and Students. Moscow, 1957. Photo: Emmanuil Evzerikhin / TASS 
Indian procession column. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
Moscow. August 5, 1957 Performance by artists from Africa on the territory of VDNKh. Moscow, 1957. Photo: Evzerikhin Emmanuil / TASS newsreel 
Participants in the carnival procession in Moscow as part of the 19th World Festival of Youth and Students. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
VI World Festival of Youth and Students. Salute to Muscovites. 1957 Photo: Lev Porter / TASS Newsreel 
Russian students on the procession. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
Muscovites greet the delegates of Jordan, heading to the Central Stadium named after V.I. Lenin. 1957 Photo: Nikolai Rakhmanov / TASS newsreel 
Chinese procession column. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
A Russian student in a Chinese procession column. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
Moscow. Youth international festival. All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. Vietnamese hat dance dance ensemble. Moscow, 1957. Photo: Emmanuil Evzerikhin / TASS newsreel 
Russian actors in the Japanese procession column. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
Family dance group Gunea (Ceylon) in national costumes during a concert at the Place du Commune. Moscow. July 30, 1957 Photo: P. Lisenkin, Evgeny Shulepov / TASS photo chronicle 
A RUDN University student at a concert that began after the procession. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
Participant of the VI World Festival of Youth and Students from Africa on Red Square. Moscow, 1957. Photo: Vasily Egorov / TASS newsreel 
Buryat actor shoots Chinese folk costume after the end of the procession. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta 
Bus with actors and a dragon. Photo: Vlad Dokshin / Novaya Gazeta The program of the 19th Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow and Sochi has recently ended. And this means that it's time to remind the history of the festival to those who are already familiar with it, and to eliminate gaps in knowledge of those who have not heard anything about it.
How it all began?
In the autumn of 1945, the World Conference of Democratic Youth was held in London, where they adopted a resolution on the creation of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
The purpose of the organization was to promote mutual understanding of young people on various issues, as well as to ensure the safety and upholding of the rights of young people. It was also decided to celebrate World Youth Day on November 10 every year.
Almost a year later, in August 1946, the 1st World Congress of Students gathered in Prague, at which the International Union of Students (ISU) was created, declaring the struggle for peace as its goals, social progress and student rights. It was under the auspices of WFDY and MSS that the very first festival of youth and students was held in the Czech Republic.
promising start
17,000 participants from 71 countries came to the festival in Prague.
The main theme was the continuation of the fight against fascism and the need to unite all countries for this. Of course, the results of the Second World War were also discussed, the issue of preserving the memory of people whose lives were given in the name of victory.
The emblem of the festival depicted two people, black and white, their handshake on the background of the globe symbolized the unity of the youth of all countries, regardless of nationality, in the fight against the main world problems.
Delegates from all countries prepared stands telling about the reconstruction of cities after the war and the activities of the WFDY in their country. The Soviet stand was different from the rest. Most of it was occupied by information about Joseph Stalin, about the constitution of the USSR, about the contribution of the Soviet Union to victory in the war and to the fight against fascism.
At numerous conferences within the framework of the festival, the role of the Soviet Union in the recently won victory was emphasized, the country was spoken about with respect and gratitude.
Chronology
The World Festival of Youth and Students was originally held every 2 years, but soon the break increased to several years.
Let's take a look at the chronology:
- Prague, Czechoslovakia - 1947
- Hungary, Budapest - 1949
- East Germany, Berlin - 1951
- Romania, Bucharest - 1953
- Poland, Warsaw - 1955
- USSR, Moscow - 1957
- Austria, Vienna - 1959
- Finland, Helsinki - 1962
- Bulgaria, Sofia - 1968
- East Germany, Berlin - 1973
- Cuba, Havana - 1978
- USSR, Moscow - 1985
- Korea, Pyongyang - 1989
- Cuba, Havana - 1997
- Algiers, Algiers - 2001
- Venezuela, Caracas - 2005
- South Africa, Pretoria - 2010
- Ecuador, Quito - 2013
- - 2017
For the first time in the USSR
The first Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow was held in 1957. It brought together 34,000 participants from 131 countries. This number of delegates is still unsurpassed.
The country rejoiced at the opening of the Iron Curtain, the entire Soviet Union and the capital were carefully preparing for the festival:
- new hotels were built in Moscow;
- smashed;
- on Central Television the "Festival Edition" was created, which released several programs called "An Evening of Funny Questions" (a prototype of the modern KVN).
The slogan of the festival "For Peace and Friendship" reflected its atmosphere and mood. Many speeches were made about the need for the independence of peoples and the promotion of internationalism. The famous Dove of Peace became the symbol of the Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1957.
The first Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow was remembered not only for its scale, but also for a number of very interesting facts:
- Moscow was covered by a real "sexual revolution". Young girls willingly got acquainted with foreign guests, started fleeting romances with them. Entire squads were created to combat this phenomenon. They went to Moscow streets at night and caught such couples. The foreigners were not touched, but the Soviet young ladies had a hard time: the combatants cut off part of their hair with scissors or machines so that the girls had no choice but to cut their hair bald. 9 months after the festival, dark-skinned citizens began to appear. They were called so - "Children of the Festival".
- At the closing ceremony, the song "Moscow Evenings" was performed by Edita Piekha and Marisa Liepa. Until now, many foreigners associate Russia with this composition.
- As one of the journalists who came to Moscow at that time noted, Soviet citizens did not want to let foreigners into their homes (he believed that the authorities had instructed them to do so), but Muscovites communicated with them very willingly on the streets.
Twelfth or second
The twelfth overall, and the second in Moscow, the Festival of Youth and Students was held in 1985. In addition to the participants (and there were 26,000 of them from 157 countries), many famous people also took part in the festival:
- Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a welcoming speech at the opening; the "peace race" was opened by the chairman of the Olympic Committee Samaranch;
- Anatoly Karpov showed his mastery of playing chess on a thousand boards at the same time;
- performed at music venues German musician Udo Lindenberg.
Not the one anymore?
Such freedom of speech as in 1957 was no longer observed. According to the recommendations of the party, all discussions should have been reduced to a certain range of issues spelled out in the document. They tried to avoid provocative questions or accused the speaker of incompetence. However most of participants of the Festival did not come at all for political discussions, but for the sake of communicating with delegates from other countries and making new friends.
The closing ceremony of the Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow was held at the Lenin Stadium (current Luzhniki). In addition to speeches by delegates and politicians from different countries, famous and popular artists, for example, Valery Leontiev presented his songs, scenes from " swan lake"performed by the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater.
Nineteenth or third
In 2015, it became known that the 2017 festival would be hosted by Russia for the third time (although, to be precise, Russia hosts it for the first time, because the USSR was the host country the previous two times).
On June 7, 2016, the cities were named where the XIX World Festival of Youth and Students will be held - Moscow and Sochi.
In Russia, as always, they began to prepare for the upcoming event with zeal. In October 2016, a clock was installed in front of the Moscow State University building, counting down the days until the start of the Festival. This event was timed to pass the standards of the TRP, the presentation of the cuisines of the world, a concert with the participation of Russian stars. Similar events were held not only in Moscow, but also in many other cities.
The opening of the Festival of Youth and Students took place at the start from and walked 8 km to the Luzhniki sports complex, where it took place grand concert with modern stars Russian stage. The finale of the holiday was a big salute, which lasted 15 minutes.
The grand opening took place in Sochi, where artists and speakers of the festival also performed.
Festival program - 2017
The program of the festival of youth and students in Moscow and Sochi was very intense. The capital was given the role of "framing" the event, its colorful opening and closing. The main events unfolded in Sochi:
- During cultural program a jazz festival organized by Igor Butman was held, Manizha, who became famous on Instagram, performed. The participants watched the play "Revolution Square. 17" performed by the Moscow Theater of Poets, enjoyed the music of the multinational symphony orchestra and even took part in a dance battle from Yegor Druzhinin.
- The sports program also included many events: passing the TRP standards, master classes, a 2017-meter race, meetings with famous Russian athletes.
- No less extensive and important has become educational program festival. During it, the participants met with scientists, businessmen, politicians and experts in various fields of science, visited numerous exhibitions and lectures, took part in discussions and master classes.
The final day of the Festival was marked by the personal presence of Vladimir Putin. He addressed the participants with a parting speech.
The World Festival of Youth and Students ended in Moscow on October 22. The organizers have prepared an impressive pyrotechnic show to music written especially for the closing of the Festival.
The Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow is becoming richer and brighter every year. Probably, he will not return to our country as soon as we would like, because there are still a lot of states that want to accept him on their territory. In the meantime, we will cherish the memory of the three past festivals and wait for new victories and discoveries from the Russian youth.
