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Circus of the Future-2015, the thirteenth International Festival of Youth Circus Troupes, Schools, and Performers, opened today in Lugansk with a parade through the main streets of the city. The opening ceremony and the first day of the contest were at the Lugansk Academic Military Music and Drama Theatre, since junta shelling badly damaged the building of the Lugansk Circus in summer 2014. Aleksei Karyakin, Chairman of the LNR Peoples Soviet, said to welcome the festival and its guests:
During the most difficult times, the circus is able to distance from us those things that, unfortunately, add to our grief, and give positive moments that prolong our lives. We can feel it… from our very first visit to the circus as a child until the very last moments of our life. I think that the number “13” will be lucky for the festival. 23 years ago, [Lugansk] was the 13th oblast of the Ukraine, but everything turned out all right. So, don’t pay attention to such a piffle. I wish good luck to the contestants and impartiality from the judges.
LNR Minister of Culture Oksana Kokotkina spoke at the opening and greeted all present:
The circus is a special thing… a special way of life that attracts and fascinates. I wish the festival long life and hope that the next festival will be in the restored building of our wounded circus.
Archpriest Alexander Ponomaryov of the Lugansk parish of the Icon of the Mother of God “of Tenderness” blessed the affair:
Let us rejoice today and be glad, because we have peace on earth now. The circus is a world of peace*. May the Lord bless our land and these great circus acts.
- This is a play on words in Russian, as мир can mean either “peace” or “world”… the fullness of the wordplay is only evident in the original Russian
The festival proper began with a presentation by the youngest participants and by the founder of the Circus of the Future festival, Dmitri Kasyanov, Director of the Lugansk State Circus. After that, the competition began. Circus of the Future-2015, on 2-3 October, will bring together 80 contestants from different countries. The festival will conduct master classes and hold a roundtable “The role of the contemporary circus arts in promoting peace and friendship among peoples”, with all levels of festival participants taking part.
The first festival was in 2002, at the Lugansk State Circus and had oblast status. In 2005, the event became all-Ukrainian, and in 2007 the festival gained international status. Since 2005, it was the only Ukrainian Youth Circus Festival held with the support of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, and since 2007, part of the care for the logistical support of the festival was in the hands of the Department of Culture, Nationalities, and Religions of the then-Lugansk Oblast State Administration. The festival wants to strengthen international creative communications between youth circus troupes and performers, to promote mutual understanding and mutual enrichment in arts and culture, increase the creative reputation of the Lugansk Circus in the international arena, and to promote circus arts through a search for creative and talented youth.
2 October 2015
LITs Lugansk Information Centre
Voices from Russia 
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