The 3rd International Festival of the twinned cities in Perm ends with a gala concert

Photo by Vitaly Koksharov

“Come together!” International Festival of the twinned cities was held in Perm on September 9-23, 2018 and became a present to the 295^th anniversary of Perm. 

Prior to the gala the Mayor of Perm Dmitry Samilov had a meeting with the festival participants from Agrigento (Italy), Duisburg (Germany), Louisville (UAS), Oxford (the UK), Qingdao (China) and Slovak Republic.

“We view our twinning relationships as very important and it was a pleasure to host the artistic delegations for the festival in Perm. I strongly believe that  your participation will give another impulse to the development of the twinning links and flourishing of our twinned cities”, noted Dmitry Samoylov .

The  participants shared their impressions of the festival, stressing its high-quality organization and exchanged the souvenirs commemorating the event. The foreign guests praised highly the artistic performance and creativity of their Perm partners and expressed hopes for future joint projects. 

During the gala Mayor of Perm Dmitry Samoylov and Perm Duma Chair Yuri Utkin handed the Acknowledgement Letters to the festival participants. 

Let us recall that the festival takes place every 5 years, and is traditionally related to the city’s “jubilee  birthdays”. Its mission is seen as creating cultural space with no borders, providing the venue for communication and exchange of experience and values. Based on cooperation with Perm partners, a wide variety of  festival events included joint performances, concerts, exhibitions and many more. 

An example of those presented at the gala is the song “The Kama River” by ‘The Voskresenie” Perm group who sang to the music specially arranged by an Italian musician and composer Graziano Mossuto, himself playing an old traditional Sicilian friskalletto pipe. The spectators also appreciated the collaboration project presented by Sicilian  fashion designer Peppe Cumbo and his Perm counterparts from Unafortuna brand Ludmila Remeshova and Alyona Ignatieva. A popular Perm country-music folkgroup ”Ba-Ba-Tu” played together with the English  violinist Lauren Spiceley, while Liu Li and Zheng PeiCheng hold everybody’s attention by a fascinating Chinese folk dance. Choreographer from Oxford modern dance theatre Anja Meinhardt staged an emotional production “Plazma” in collaboration with “The Eugene Panfilov’s Theatre” from Perm.   

The festival concerts and events within 5 days were visited by over 5000 of Perm residents.