Looking for a “genius of place”

To single out and position themselves as a unique geographical unit, Ukrainian cities and towns often put emphasis on gastro festivals and disregard intellectual tourism. The wave of festival movement is on the rise in Ukraine. In search of a local identity, cities, towns, and villages organize their own fests and celebrations. Most of the ideas are so far pivoting around gastro tours that have, as a rule, no ethnic or cultural background. They are not linked to the venue with a special tie that makes festivals successful and the venue ori-ginal and popular among tourists. Hence inability to disclose the spi-rit of the city and make people remember the attractive features of a specific geography.

Borys Klimchuk, Chairman of the Volyn Oblast Administration, announced recently that the oblast was planning to hold several new festivals next year to develop its tourist potential. Among the ideas Klimchuk has hit upon are potato, deruny (potato pancakes), cranberry, bilberry, and even bread moonshine fests. Why not? The oblast residents eat potatoes and potato pancakes, pick bilberries, and, in all probability, drink home-brewed spirits… But other regions also hold similar fests. For example, Transcarpathia has already celebrated the feast of bilberries while the historic Korosten is only getting ready for the Fourth International Potato Pancake Festival.

“This is local identity. People identify themselves with, above all, the place they live in. Accordingly, it is important for them to hold, by themselves, some important periodical event in the place of their residence,” social psychologist Oleh POKALCHUK says, explaining the Ukrainians’ love for all kinds of halushky [variety of dumplings. – Ed.], borshch, and deruny festivals. The expert can see nothing wrong in these “feasts of the stomach,” for they are equally popular in Europe. “I have been to Norway – every small town holds its own festivals there. Or look at Germany: nothing but beer and satiety. There is in fact nothing exotic here, and this phenomenon does not humiliate the Ukrainians. I would say it is sort of a medieval type of behavior, but whenever the world gets stabilized and harmonized, it seeks out pleasures,” Pokalchuk sums up.

Nevertheless, some gastro fests in Ukraine differ from the rest, for they are not only aimed at meeting primary human needs but are also part of cultural heritage, such as the feast of bryndza (sheep milk cheese) in Rakhiv or the wine festival in Transcarpathia. But, to create a really “one’s own” feast (gastronomic or literary), one must work very hard.

The Day asked Sviatoslav Pomerantsev, initiator and organizer of the Chernivtsi-based European-level festival Meridian Czernowitz, about how to organize a successful festival which can be the real showpiece of a city. “First of all, you should be a manager and be able to see the foundation on which your festival will rest,” Pomerantsev explains and gives an example: “It is literature for Chernivtsi, Venetian glass and cinematic art for Venice, and Parmesan ham for Parma. For, if there is no foundation, this will be New Vasiuky.” Secondly, Pomerantsev stresses, you should assess the extent to which this foundation is capable of supporting the “structure” you are going to erect. Thirdly, there must be a strong team that will include an initiative group and a creative group. You should also see the skyline, i.e., to understand to what extent this will be interesting and useful, and see the scale and the purpose of what you are doing. If you take due account of these matters, you are standing every chance to hold one of the most brilliant festivals in Ukraine and Europe, the Meridian Czernowitz organizer says.

It is usually city and regional councils that organize all kinds of fests, forgetting to inquire about the ideas of intellectuals and creative youth. It is a pity indeed.“This should not be a strictly private initiative,” Pomerantsev points out. “When you organize a festival, you must get in touch with experts in one field or another and independent international experts, you must seek answers to your questions in international humanitarian institutions, you must inquire about not only funding but also the opinion about the event itself, and, naturally, if international experts consider the event interesting, it is a serious argument.”

One can organize in this way a really high-quality festival that will put the name of a city on the map of intellectual tourism. We can see a favorable tendency towards the gra-dual development of the so-called intellectual tourism in Ukraine. Den/ The Day is also contributing to this development, for tourism is not so much recreation and entertainment as a way to get to know the world and history and an opportunity to find one’s ego – on both personal and nationwide scale.

Yet experts say halushky and fatback fests will be ranking first in the nearest future. But this is a temporary phenomenon.

“Intellectual tourism and intellectual festivals will not be developing shortly. I see no prospects for this because Ukrainian culture is in fact being revived anew, which will take some time,” Pokalchuk says. Besides, in his view, “intellectual festivals require economic and social stability. Only then will the people be able to take to intellectual entertainment. Potato pancakes are everywhere, literature is not. Literature has always been an elitist thing, and it needs a certain system of assessing stability. The people who create literature and culture work within the limits of their social group and, hence, mark certain events by themselves.”

Every city and town has its own “trump cards.” Emphasis should be placed on the latter, so that tourists could travel there in order not only to eat and drink but also to discover a new “reference point of culture,” to know more about the history and traditions of this area. It is not easy to attach a brand to a city, but if one takes a sound approach to this, it may produce striking results – the city will be well known in Europe and the world. “Today, Chernivtsi has a lot of cards, but literature is their trump,” Pomerantsev says and advises every city to look for a card like this.

Den has already reported on a successful art festival in a small German city of Luebeck, where the well-known writers Heinrich and Thomas Mann were born. The town, situated a long way from Germany’s main tourist attractions, would not have aroused interest among tourists, had it not been for a festival. The leitmotif is the love of Thomas Mann for Richard Wagner’s music. This brought forth a festival that combined music, theater, and literature.

This is one of the many examples of successful festivals which fit in very well with the local landscape, become part of this place, and make people believe in the uniqueness of this concrete geographical point.

In his book The Genius of Place, the well-known Russian and American journalist, writer, and radio presenter Pyotr Vail says: “The link between man and the place of residence is mysterious but obvious. Responsible for this is genius loci, the genius of place, which links intellectual, spiritual, and emotional phenomena with their material medium.”

Every Ukrainian city and town does have its own “genius of place,” but will it be able to find and understand the latter?

COMMENTARY

Yurii VOINAROVSKY, president, Ukrainian section, International Council of Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Art (CIOFF) under UNESCO; Meritorious Fi-gure of Arts, Ukraine; director, Palace of Culture, Lutsk:

“A month ago I attended the festival ‘Week of Beskids Culture’ in the borderline area of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. It was held for the 48th time. Can you fancy that? This most high-profile folklore festival in Poland is under the patronage of that country’s president. At this time, the population of Wisla, a small ski resort of the type of our Bukovel, rises sharply. While it has up to 2,000 permanent residents, it receives another 3,000 from various countries during the festival.

“Our Polish neighbors and we once organized an international festival, ‘Polissia Summer with Folklore,’ which lasted for a week in Ukraine and for another week in Poland. This festival, held since 1994, is now sort of a showpiece for not only Lutsk and Volyn but Ukraine as a whole. The number of festivals in a country or a region testifies not only to the intellect but also to the degree of civilization of a nation. This is why there are so many ethno festivals throughout the world. While Ukraine is braced for Euro-2012 the next year, South Korea is preparing for a folklore feast to be also held in 2012. They are expected to receive visitors from 70 countries.

“In my opinion, the festival initiative should come from the bottom, while financial and moral support should come from above, i.e., from the government. Yet public support does matter. For example, Volyn has at least a festival that will be held for the fifth time this summer and may become the area’s showcase. I mean the festival Banderstadt organized by the civic youth organization National Alliance. Incidentally, it is a patriotic festival in the national spirit. We need various and different festivals. And, although there are fatback, halushky or tomato fests in the world – things do happen indeed, – they also present, in their own way, a region or even a country.”

Interviewed by Valerii KOSTIUKEVYCH, The Day, Zhytomyr; Natalia MALIMON, The Day, Lutsk