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On November, 25, 2017 the annual Russian cultural festival took place in Wellington, New Zealand. The festival was organised by Wellington Russian Club chaired by Victor Gaiduch, with the support of the Embassy of Russian Federation in New Zealand and personally the Russian ambassador in New Zealand Valery Tereshchenko. Many people caring about Russian culture took part in the festival.

No one could stay indifferent to the diverse musical programme of the festival. The dancing group ‘Smuglyanka’ from the Russian Othodox church of Auckland was met, as always, by a storm of applause. The group consists of more than 20 people. Other groups and performers also contributed to the musical part of the festival. Here are the names of just a few of them: Olga Panasenko from Auckland, whose beautiful voice enchanted the audience by its diapason and richness, Vladimir Bell – the musical director of the festival who also performed as a singer, Aleksey Medvedev – the sound engineer of the festival, a talented guitarist and singer, ‘Kaleidoscope’ – a dance group from Wellington, Anastasiya Davis – a singer from Wellington, and many others. The number of people who attended the festival this year exceeded all expectations, some of them had to watch the concert standing in the aisles, because there were not enough chairs for everyone.

The guests of the festival were also astonished by the diversity of delicious food prepared there. Cold kvass soup ‘Okroshka’, Russian dumplings, traditional kvass and pancakes, kebab and gingerbread, candies and lollipops, a great variety of cakes, and other delicacies were on offer. Such variety of dishes let no one go hungry.

The parish and sisterhood of Wellington Church of Christ the Saviour took active part in the organisation of the festival. The church choir performed a few Orthodox chants in the first part of the concert, and opened the second part by a set of folk songs. Father Alexis Popkov played a few musical pieces on gusli – a traditional Russian instrument.

Tatiana Sims and her daughter Anna organised and ran a master class on making and decorating Russian dolls and other crafts.

The sisterhood of the church chaired by Natalia Reid held a food stall with baking and other delicacies prepared according to traditional Russian recipes. It is worth noting that this stall received particular attention of the festival audience

Char-grilled kebabs, pancakes cooked right at the festival, milkshakes and other delicious treats that could be purchased outside the festival hall, were also provided by the parish of the Russian church.

This event unites many people and brings a lot of positive emotions to everyone, organisers and guests alike. Let us hope that, with God’s help, this festival will continue to be held in Wellington in future.

P.S. Thank you to Victor Gaiduch and Yana Skaler for the photographs.

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