This number includes only those who visited a show of the Igor Moiseyev folk dance ensemble, classical ballet performances, and film screenings, says Tatyana Shumova, Vice President of the Russian Culture Fund and producer of the Russian Arts Festival in Cannes.
She told RIA Novosti in an interview that the exhibition entitled Tula-Land of Masters had drawn over a thousand visitors daily. Here, French people had an opportunity to watch traditional Russian clay toys being molded and painted, to see decorative embroiders at work, to partake of trademark ginger bread from Tula and to admire acclaimed Tula samovars.
In the evenings, the whole town will converge on the Boulevard de la Croisette to listen to live performances by an orchestra from Komsomolsk-on-Amur and a folk ensemble Uslada, as well as to see a colorful defile of female drummers from Surgut and a military orchestra of the Baltic Fleet HQ.
"Our festival is a feast that has come to town, which, much to our joy and we can feel that, has been looked forward to," Shumova said.
Billboards of the Russian Arts Festival can be seen all across the Cote d'Azur now, and many of Cannes' neighbors have asked Russian artists to come visit.
According to Shumova, French audiences have been particularly impressed with a Russian Night gala at the Palais des Festivals. The gala, which features Russian and Gypsy songs, Russian fashion designs, and Russian cuisine specialties, was staged as a prologue to the festival's main program.
"We will maintain the tradition; back home, in Russia, we also have annual Russian cuisine contests, best cook and best confectioner competitions, and so we will be inviting winners of these contests to the [Russian Arts ] Festival in Cannes," Shumova said.
She also told RIA that Russian ships were coming to take part in the festival for a second time this year. The cruiser Moscow of the Black Sea Fleet arrived here in 2001, and this time around, the Neustrashimy and the Kaliningrad, of the Baltic Fleet, are coming along.
"We will be upholding this remarkable tradition, as well; and within the framework of such visits, we are going to hold soccer, volleyball and chess tournaments between crew teams and ones formed from Cannes residents," our interviewee said,
The 7th Russian Arts Festival in Cannes will culminate with a show of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" on August 28. The production to be presented to French audiences has been mounted by the Russian Classical Ballet Theater.
