KAZANTYP – peninsula on the peninsula

A famous festival Kazantyp, hosted for the seventh year in a row at his historical fatherland, makes its sad or joyous breakthrough. Usually, the fiesta takes place in the eastern part of the island but this year the festival moved to the western part of the Crimea, the village of Popivka nearYevpatoria. ‘Residents of Shcholkino had been criticizing ‘the wild youth’ for years, saying that they wreaked havoc there,’ said Volodymyr Saveliyev, the Minister for tourism and resorts of the Crimea. That is why we moved the festival to another far place near Yevpatoria. Local citizens were just in raptures about it. They had been welcoming ‘the wild youth’ for four years and this year they have welcomed them again. They are even glad because the spare one hundred hryvnyas into the local budget is a great deal,’ continued Volodymyr Savelyev.

And Shcholkino has only got the name of the festival and lost its brand. According to Volodymyr Savelyev, the season was successful even though the Russian press had been hounding the Crimean resorts. Although, due to intolerably scorching weather, the forests near Yalta were ablaze, and over 60 hectares burnt down, the Almighty had a pity and the rain came pouring down to put out the fire in the moun tains.

Kazantyp is situated far away from the mountains. To reach it, you need to take a route taxi from Kerch. Empty steppe is all around you and there you see the station Lenino. That is where you need to get off. There you may hitchhike to reach Shcholkino . We learnt about such solitary location from the keepers of the reserve. Just opposite a small isth mus on Kazantip, the sky scrapers of Shcholkino mushroom high. The place has no paved streets just yards and the single by-pass street comes into view. If, for instance, you look for house 4b, it would be miles away from house 4a. ‘Why is it so?’ I asked Mrs Natalya Lytvynyuk, a scientif ic researcher of Kazantyp nature reserve. ‘A special place had to be built here for power engi neers. And power station must have been built here too. The place had to be a closed zone. That is why we have no streets, and num bers of the houses are scat tered around. No spy can break in. Not a single bus passes through Shcholkino until now. It is like the place has no secrets anymore, but it is void of any legal system as well.

The power station had never been built because of Chernobyl disaster. We got scared. Imagine we would place such a monster on the Crimean map. Volodymyr Savelyev, the Minister for tourism and resorts of the Crimea would have had noth ing to boast of.’ There is a story that Kazantyp is a crater of an ancient volcano. But Natalya Lytvynyuk thinks that it has a more prosaic origin. It is thought that the city was cre ated due to erosions and remains of the rocks which destroyed the central eleva tion and a wide basin was formed where grapes are being grown nowadays. Anyway, Kazantyp still looks like a crater. And its name originates from the Crimean-Tartar language and means ‘big cauldron.’

These rocky shores serve as wonderful bays for rest. Holidays for two are simply a perfect destination. But according to Natalya Lytvynyuk it is not easy to reach there. The peninsula is a reserve so gamekeepers keep an eye on it for some body not to tread upon the vegetation. No trees are found here, just an empty steppe and here and there you may see some rocky ledges; thorns bite your legs and hands. But it was not so long ago when this steppe was trodden onto…’Festival fans roved around Kazantyp,’ recalled Natalya. They were looking for some grass but not to feed cows or goats. They needed it for themselves. Such a magical grass but you do not get addicted to it. It is not dan gerous. We have one plant here — eat one mouthful of berries and you will see things. Festival fans dried it on the seashore and smoked. They could not guess the secret but we told them. One of the fans told me later: ‘Your grass is non sense.’

Hurray for the festival day! Shcholkino has a strange name. Natalya revealed us that it was two names Meotyda and Kazantyp cho sen for the place in the 80s. But they made it Shcholkino after one famous soviet nuclear engineer who worked here. Right now as Kazantip moved to another place, the residents of Shcholkino are ill at ease. Imagine hundred thousand hryvnyas came into the budget of Popivka. ‘Festival will take place,’ emphasized Volodymyr Savelyev. ‘We cannot lose such money when they are given away. But it is not only money. Youth needs some thing independent, some thing private. They created their own ‘republic1 there and chili out. Organizers of the ‘republic’ do not want to get in touch with local authori ties. They say they don’t need authorities. At the very begin ning authorities ignored them and these days they ignore the authorities.

Kazantyp festival should be cancelled…

‘I think it is not possible. We need to get accustomed to this tradition like to the pow ers of nature. We should make the organizers of the to be right. He says that no one can prohibit such youth activities regardless of all its festival understand the authorities that we do not want to invade upon the free dom of youth but we only protect them from evil. The Festival in Popivka was not different from previous years — the same aura and attributes. Such gatherings are known in Europe for a longtime, from Beatles era, especially on British islands. In France they take place only in southern part. Germans and Dutch are also fond of festival life. But Mr Savelyev still seems unique and negative factors. If we cancel the festival, it may boomerang. And the youth will not benefit from it in any way. We need the right approach because those people who come to see the festival pay their money for freedom first of all. Sometimes they pay by their health. Is it the real freedom or slavery? Is it just an addic tion to drugs, alcohol and lack of discipline? Or maybe we will need to look for escape from this ‘wonder-freedom’

Author: Luka Goverda