Serbian Love: Russian Music Festival from Emir Kusturica

The village of Drvengrad on the border of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina was built by the famous Serbian director Emir Kusturica. The settlement became the setting for his film "Life as a Miracle". The film is already 13 years old, filming has long been over, the tape has collected all the necessary applause and criticism.

But the scenery remained. And now, in the same place, the same Emir Kusturica tells a completely different story once a year — about talents, about music and about the friendship of peoples.

(14 photos in total)

The Serbian director came up with the "Big" festival of Russian Music in 2013. Since 2015, Gazprom Neft has volunteered to support the festival. As part of the "Hometowns" social investment program, through which the company creates conditions for the development and support of gifted youth from the regions of its activity, young Russian talents took part in the competition for the first time — musicians from Omsk, Tomsk, Muravlenko, Noyabrsk, Orenburg and Khanty-Mansiysk came to the festival.

A preliminary competitive selection is held in each of the regions and the most talented children get to the festival. The chairman of the commission that evaluates the level of talent is pianist Yuri Rozum, People's Artist of Russia, soloist of the Moscow State Philharmonic.

Every year, the "Big One" disturbs the tranquility of the Serbian mountains with the sounds of musical instruments, basses, violas and sopranos of all levels and tones. Young talents from Russia and Serbia come here not just to take part in the competition. For them, this is an exchange of experience and a real dialogue between two cultures — not the one that is usually written about after stuffy conferences. And the one that is born when the most talented musicians go on the same stage and live and hone their skills side by side for four days.

This year, a delegation from Russia came to Drvengrad consisting of 22 people from Orenburg, Omsk, Tomsk, Tyumen, St. Petersburg and other cities.

Anastasia Tretyakova, participant of the festival

The music festival can be divided into two parts — competitive and cultural. Within the framework of the first, young performers from Russia and Serbia compete with each other. The cultural part is the performances of famous Russian and Serbian musicians.

At the same time, the "Big One" takes place in such a way that even the competitive part is more like a festival. The program is absolutely free, the only condition is the presence of a Russian classical work in the repertoire. All performers compete with each other — the winner can be a vocalist, or maybe an oboist.

Yuri Rozum, pianist, People's Artist of Russia, member of the jury

Serbian musicians perform many works by Serbian composers. The Russian participants hold classics and romance in high esteem. Due to the lack of strict competitive framework, every year the festival program becomes more interesting and extensive.

There is no tough competitive rivalry here, but it is no less pleasant to receive a well-deserved reward from this. This year, prizes in the form of nesting dolls were taken to their hometowns by two participants from Russia, both in the younger age group. Svetlana Zvereva, a pianist from St. Petersburg, won first place, and soprano Violetta Sabayeva from Omsk took the bronze award.

Violetta Sabayeva, winner of the competition of the festival "Big"

This year, the famous YouTube blogger Valeria Lyubarskaya went to the festival. We publish her video mosaic from the scene.

The festival ends, but Drvengrad does not sink into silence — the Kustendorf Film and music Festival and other musical events are also held here. And the young musicians will return here in a year to prove once again: it doesn't matter how big your city is, because there are no obstacles on the way to success for a great talent.