In what year was the festival first held? The story of how the festival daisy blossomed - a symbol of the World Festival of Youth and Students

The publication was prepared as part of a cultural research project under a grant from the President of the Russian Federation “The Art of Festive City Decoration. History and Modernity.”

The Thaw era manifested itself in the festive decoration of the city with a number of interesting artistic phenomena. Excessive massiveness and embellishment of the post-war years gave way to simple, light, functional solutions. Ceremonial portraits are replaced by decorative panels and thematic compositions, the images on them acquire a more conventional, generalized symbolic interpretation. Eclecticism and ponderous monumentality disappear, color and a range of pure open tones acquire great importance. By the end of the 1950s, the first examples of the solution of design complexes in spatial development appeared, in connection with the urban environment and, above all, architectural ensembles. One of best examples This approach to decorating the city was the design of Moscow in the summer of 1957, during the VI World Festival of Youth and Students.

During the festival, the entire city was turned into a giant theater and exhibition space. Picturesque panels, volumetric plastic structures, transforming light-kinetic devices decorated the streets, parks and water areas of Moscow.

A whole carnival train traveled through Moscow, consisting of 120 movable decorative installations, cargo platforms, multi-colored buses, decorated with the festival flower, national flags, colorful ribbons and fresh flowers. This grand procession was opened by a motorcycle escort of standard bearers, carrying azure silk banners with the image of white doves.

The decoration of the Moscow Boulevard Ring on the theme of literary works, author's and folk tales— a lot of carefully painted structures placed along the pedestrian part of the boulevards, carved along the contour, picturesque panels and volumetric and decorative installations.

During the Festival, Manezhnaya Square turned into a unique " ballroom"and at the same time to the gallery, where enlarged copies of Boris Prorokov's drawings and posters on anti-war themes were exhibited. The building of the Moscow Hotel was decorated with a gigantic decorative panel with the image of a woman in Russian costume holding bread and salt (artist Chingiz Akhmarov).

In the design of city highways important role architecture of small forms played. Decorated lanterns united the composition of the festive decorations with rhythmic repetitions and emphasized the distant perspective of the streets or the enclosed space of the squares. Bright colorful spots included numerous stalls, kiosks, and tents where festival souvenirs and carnival attributes were sold. This design was actively included in the spatial design of highways, organizing it in a new way and bringing it closer to a human scale. Garlands of greenery, arches of balloons, light ceilings highlighted festive areas, distinguished by a special richness of decor.

Tverskoy Boulevard was decorated on the theme “Tales of the Peoples of the World” (artists S. Amursky, E. Bragin, I. Derviz, I. Egorkina, I. Lavrova, V. Nikitin). Decorative installations located on the lawns of the boulevard illustrated Russian, French, Chinese fairy tales. Other characters are located on the arches spanning the alleys of the boulevard.

“Wonder Town”, created according to the design of artist Ida Egorkina on one of the sites Tverskoy Boulevard, reproduced magical castles from Chinese, Indian and European fairy tales.

“Russian literature” became the theme for the decoration of the neighboring Suvorovsky Boulevard; it was even called “Book Boulevard” during the festival. At the very beginning, at the Nikitsky Gate, a huge stele in the form of a stack of books was installed, next to it there was a panel-diptych “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (artists A.L. Orlovsky, M.A. Velizheva, E.G. Kozakova). Book stalls and huge models of books with illustrations to works of Russian literature were installed along the boulevard. classical literature, tall columns composed of many volumes (artist G. Tkachev).

Near the university building on the high bank of the Moscow River, the composition “Festival Torch” by architect-artist Igor Pokrovsky was installed. The design of the installation was simple and clear, and the use of figurative metaphors made it possible to create an expressive image: the flame of a tall torch seemed to turn into a symbol of peace - white dove with wings outstretched in flight.

Arbat Square was decorated with an electric fountain designed by architect Nikolai Latyshev (designer T. Komissarov, artists V. Konovalov, T. Mikhailov). Light dynamic cascade from light bulbs was crowned with a decorative figure of a dove of peace, and the fountain bowl was decorated around the perimeter with flags of the countries participating in the youth festival. At that time it was an innovative solution, which, however, did not receive further development. Only in our days has the idea of ​​an electric fountain as an element of the city’s festive decoration experienced a rebirth.

Designed by architect Vadim Makarevich, the design of the Belorussky Station square was built on color contrast flagpoles rhythmically located along the perimeter of the square. Masts with multi-colored ribbons and panels converged towards the center - towards a dove holding a flower in its beak. Against the background of the dove, the figures of a young man and a girl stood out as they greeted the participants of the holiday. The picture is clickable.

The illumination of the Central Telegraph played on the symbolism of the Festival - a large festival daisy and a hand clutching a burning torch in the central part and many small silhouettes of a dove of peace on the side facades.

On the streets of festival Moscow one could also see naturalistic panels made in old traditions, outdated garlands and patterns, and posters with stenciled faces. But the best visual solutions have shown continuous searches expressive means, artists' interest in synthesis decorative elements with architecture.

The festive decorations of Moscow during the Festival transformed the entire city. Trucks and cars painted in the five colors of the festival moved along the streets. Many streets these days acquired festival names - Street of Peace, Street of Friendship, Street of Happiness, Street of Fifteen Republics. Some of them remained in the city toponymy.

During demonstrations, mass meetings and sports competitions, huge images of the festival daisy, the coat of arms of the festival, suspended from balloons, hovered over the squares and streets of Moscow in the light of floodlights. Soviet Union and dove of peace.

In conclusion, I will show a selection of sketches of the festive decorations of Moscow for the VI World Festival of Youth and Students. Many of them were not implemented.

Original taken from mgsupgs at Festival 1957

VI World Festival of Youth and Students - a festival that opened on July 28, 1957 in Moscow,
Personally, I didn’t even find it in the project, but in the next 85 years I got a full measure.
Someday I’ll post a photo... “Yankees out of Grenada - Commies out of Afghanistan”... They used posters to hide from the cameras..
And the guests of that festival were 34,000 people from 131 countries. The slogan of the festival is “For peace and friendship.”

The festival was prepared over two years. This was an action planned by the authorities to “liberate” the people from Stalinist ideology. Foreign countries arrived in shock: it opens slightly iron curtain! The idea of ​​the Moscow festival was supported by many statesmen The West - even Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, politicians of Greece, Italy, Finland, France, not to mention the pro-Soviet presidents of Egypt, Indonesia, Syria, the leaders of Afghanistan, Burma, Nepal and Ceylon.

Thanks to the festival, the capital received the Druzhba park in Khimki, the Tourist hotel complex, the Luzhniki stadium and Ikarus buses. The first GAZ-21 Volga cars and the first Rafik, the RAF-10 Festival minibus, were produced for the event. The Kremlin, guarded day and night from enemies and friends, became completely free for visits, and youth balls were held in the Palace of Facets. The Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure suddenly canceled the entrance fee.

The festival consisted of a huge number of planned events and unorganized and uncontrolled communication between people. Black Africa was especially favored. Journalists rushed to the black envoys of Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia (then these countries had just freed themselves from colonial dependence), and Moscow girls also rushed to them “in an international impulse.” Arabs were also singled out because Egypt had just gained national freedom after the war.

Thanks to the festival, KVN arose, transforming from the specially invented program “Evening fun questions" TV editors "Festival". They discussed about the recently banned impressionists, about Ciurlionis, Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, about Ilya Glazunov, who was coming into fashion, with his illustrations for the works of Dostoevsky, who was not entirely desirable in the USSR. The festival changed the views of Soviet people on fashion, behavior, lifestyle and accelerated the pace of change. Khrushchev’s “thaw”, dissident movement, a breakthrough in literature and painting - all this began soon after the festival.

Symbol youth forum, which was attended by delegates from left-wing youth organizations around the world, was the Dove of Peace, invented by Pablo Picasso. The festival became in every sense a significant and explosive event for boys and girls - and the most widespread in its history. It took place in the middle of Khrushchev's thaw and was remembered for its openness. Foreigners who arrived communicated freely with Muscovites; this was not persecuted. The Moscow Kremlin and Gorky Park were open to the public. Over the two weeks of the festival, over eight hundred events were held.

In the main event - the rally "For Peace and Friendship!" on Manezhnaya Square and the surrounding streets, half a million people took part.
For two weeks there was mass fraternization on the streets and in parks. Pre-arranged regulations were violated, events dragged on past midnight and smoothly turned into festivities until dawn.

Those who knew languages ​​rejoiced at the opportunity to show off their erudition and talk about the recently banned impressionists, Hemingway and Remarque. The guests were shocked by the erudition of their interlocutors, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and the young Soviet intellectuals were shocked by the fact that foreigners did not value the happiness of freely reading any authors and knew nothing about them.

Some people got by with a minimum of words. A year later, a lot of dark-skinned children appeared in Moscow, who were called “children of the festival.” Their mothers were not sent to camps “for having sex with a foreigner,” as would have happened recently.

The ensemble “Friendship” and Edita Piekha with the program “Songs of the Peoples of the World” won a gold medal and the title of festival laureates. The song “Moscow Nights” performed at the closing ceremony by Vladimir Troshin and Edita Piekha has long become business card THE USSR.
Fashion for jeans, sneakers, rock and roll and badminton began to spread in the country. The musical superhits “Rock” became popular around the clock”, “Hymn of Democratic Youth”, “If only the boys of the whole Earth...”, etc.

Dedicated to the festival Feature Film“Girl with a Guitar”: in the music store where saleswoman Tanya Fedosova (Spanish Lyudmila Gurchenko) works, preparations for the festival are underway, and at the end of the film, the festival delegates perform at a concert in the store (Tanya also performs with some of them). Other films dedicated to the festival are “The Sailor from the Comet”, “Chain Reaction”, “The Road to Paradise”.

“Ogonyok”, 1957, No. 1, January.
“The year 1957 has arrived, a festival year. Let's take a look at what will happen in Moscow at the VI World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship, and visit those who are preparing for the holiday today.... There are few pigeons in our photo. But this is just a rehearsal. You see pigeons from the Kauchuk plant, under the very sky, at the height of a ten-story city building, Komsomol members and the youth of the plant have equipped an excellent room for the birds with central heating and hot water.”

The festival consisted of a huge number of planned events and simple unorganized and uncontrolled communication of people. During the day and evening, the delegations were busy with meetings and speeches. But late in the evening and at night free communication began. Naturally, the authorities tried to establish control over the contacts, but they did not have enough hands, since the tracers turned out to be a drop in the bucket. The weather was excellent, and crowds of people literally flooded the main highways. To better see what was happening, people climbed onto ledges and roofs of houses. Due to the influx of curious people, the roof of the Shcherbakovsky department store, located on Kolkhoznaya Square, on the corner of Sretenka and Garden Ring. After this, the department store was renovated for a long time, opened briefly, and then demolished. At night, people “gathered in the center of Moscow, on the roadway of Gorky Street, near the Mossovet, on Pushkin Square, on Marx Avenue.

Disputes arose at every step and on every occasion, except, perhaps, politics. Firstly, they were afraid, and most importantly, they were in pure form weren't very interested. However, in fact, any debate had a political nature, be it literature, painting, fashion, not to mention music, especially jazz. We discussed the impressionists that had recently been banned in our country, Ciurlionis, Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, and Ilya Glazunov, who was coming into fashion, with his illustrations for the works of Dostoevsky, who was not entirely desirable in the USSR. Actually, these were not so much disputes as the first attempts to freely express their opinions to others and defend them. I remember how on bright nights there were groups of people standing on the pavement of Gorky Street, in the center of each of them several people were heatedly discussing something. The rest, surrounding them in a tight ring, listened, gaining their wits, getting used to this very process - the free exchange of opinions. These were the first lessons of democracy, the first experience of getting rid of fear, the first, completely new experiences of uncontrolled communication.

During the festival, a kind of sexual revolution took place in Moscow. Young people, and especially girls, seemed to have broken free. Puritanical Soviet society suddenly witnessed events that no one expected and which shocked even me, who was then an ardent supporter of free sex. The shape and scale of what was happening was amazing. Several reasons were at work here. Beautiful warm weather, general euphoria of freedom, friendship and love, craving for foreigners and most importantly - the accumulated protest against all this puritanical pedagogy, deceitful and unnatural.

By nightfall, when it was getting dark, crowds of girls from all over Moscow made their way to the places where foreign delegations lived. These were student dormitories and hotels on the outskirts of the city. One of these typical places was the “Tourist” hotel complex, built behind VDNKh. At that time, this was the edge of Moscow, followed by collective farm fields. It was impossible for the girls to break into the buildings, since everything was cordoned off by security officers and vigilantes. But no one could prohibit foreign guests from leaving the hotels.

Events developed at the highest possible speed. No courtship, no false coquetry. The newly formed couples retreated into the darkness, into the fields, into the bushes, knowing exactly what they would immediately do. They didn't go particularly far, so the space around them was filled quite tightly, but in the dark it didn't matter. The image of a mysterious, shy and chaste Russian Komsomol girl did not exactly collapse, but rather was enriched with some new, unexpected feature - reckless, desperate debauchery.

The reaction of units of the moral and ideological order was not long in coming. Flying squads were urgently organized in trucks, equipped with lighting devices, scissors and hairdressing clippers. When trucks with vigilantes, according to the raid plan, unexpectedly drove out into the fields and turned on all the headlights and lamps, then the true scale of what was happening emerged. They didn’t touch foreigners, they dealt only with girls, and since there were too many of them, the vigilantes had no interest in finding out their identity or simply arresting them. The caught lovers of night adventures had part of their hair cut off, such a “clearing” was made, after which the girl had only one thing left to do - cut her hair bald. Immediately after the festival, Moscow residents developed a particularly keen interest in girls who wore a tightly tied scarf on their heads... Many dramas happened in families, in educational institutions and in enterprises where it was more difficult to hide the lack of hair than just on the street, in the subway or trolleybus. It turned out to be even more difficult to hide the babies who appeared nine months later, often not similar to their own mother either in skin color or eye shape.

Naturally, I tried to visit first of all where they performed foreign musicians. A huge platform was built on Pushkin Square, on which “concerts of various groups were held day and evening. It was there that I first saw an English ensemble in the skiffle style, and, in my opinion, led by Lonnie Donigan himself. The impression was quite strange. Elderly and very young people played together, using, along with ordinary acoustic guitars various household and improvised items such as a can-double bass, a washboard, pots, etc. In the Soviet press there was a reaction to this genre in the form of statements like: “This is what the bourgeoisie have come to, they play on washboards.” But then everything fell silent, since “skiffle” has folk roots, and folklore in the USSR was sacred.

The most fashionable and hard-to-find concerts at the festival were the jazz concerts. There was a special excitement around them, fueled by the authorities, who tried to somehow keep them secret by distributing passes among Komsomol activists. In order to “get through” to such concerts, great skill was required.

PS. In 1985, Moscow again hosted participants and guests of the Youth Festival, already the twelfth. The festival became one of the first high-profile international shares times of perestroika. With its help, the Soviet authorities hoped to change for the better the gloomy image of the USSR - the “evil empire.” Considerable funds were allocated for the event. Moscow was cleared of unfavorable elements, roads and streets were put in order. But they tried to keep festival guests away from Muscovites: only people who had passed Komsomol and party verification were allowed to communicate with guests. The unity that existed in 1957 during the first Moscow festival no longer happened.

Original taken from mgsupgs at Festival 1957

VI World Festival of Youth and Students - a festival that opened on July 28, 1957 in Moscow,
Personally, I didn’t even find it in the project, but in the next 85 years I got a full measure.
Someday I’ll post a photo... “Yankees out of Grenada - Commies out of Afghanistan”... They used posters to hide from the cameras..
And the guests of that festival were 34,000 people from 131 countries. The slogan of the festival is “For peace and friendship.”

The festival was prepared over two years. This was an action planned by the authorities to “liberate” the people from Stalinist ideology. Foreign countries arrived in shock: the Iron Curtain was opening! The idea of ​​the Moscow festival was supported by many Western statesmen - even Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, politicians from Greece, Italy, Finland, France, not to mention the pro-Soviet presidents of Egypt, Indonesia, Syria, the leaders of Afghanistan, Burma, Nepal and Ceylon.

Thanks to the festival, the capital received the Druzhba park in Khimki, the Tourist hotel complex, the Luzhniki stadium and Ikarus buses. The first GAZ-21 Volga cars and the first Rafik, the RAF-10 Festival minibus, were produced for the event. The Kremlin, guarded day and night from enemies and friends, became completely free for visits, and youth balls were held in the Palace of Facets. The Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure suddenly canceled the entrance fee.

The festival consisted of a huge number of planned events and unorganized and uncontrolled communication between people. Black Africa was especially favored. Journalists rushed to the black envoys of Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia (then these countries had just freed themselves from colonial dependence), and Moscow girls also rushed to them “in an international impulse.” Arabs were also singled out because Egypt had just gained national freedom after the war.

Thanks to the festival, KVN arose, transformed from the specially invented program “An Evening of Fun Questions” by the TV editorial office “Festivalnaya”. They discussed about the recently banned impressionists, about Ciurlionis, Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, about Ilya Glazunov, who was coming into fashion, with his illustrations for works of Dostoevsky, who was not entirely desirable in the USSR. The festival changed the views of Soviet people on fashion, behavior, lifestyle and accelerated the pace of change. Khrushchev’s “thaw”, the dissident movement, a breakthrough in literature and painting - all this began soon after the festival.

The symbol of the youth forum, which was attended by delegates from left-wing youth organizations around the world, was the Dove of Peace, invented by Pablo Picasso. The festival became in every sense a significant and explosive event for boys and girls - and the most widespread in its history. It took place in the middle of Khrushchev's thaw and was remembered for its openness. Foreigners who arrived communicated freely with Muscovites; this was not persecuted. The Moscow Kremlin and Gorky Park were open to the public. Over the two weeks of the festival, over eight hundred events were held.

In the main event - the rally "For Peace and Friendship!" Half a million people took part on Manezhnaya Square and surrounding streets.
For two weeks there was mass fraternization on the streets and in parks. Pre-arranged regulations were violated, events dragged on past midnight and smoothly turned into festivities until dawn.

Those who knew languages ​​rejoiced at the opportunity to show off their erudition and talk about the recently banned impressionists, Hemingway and Remarque. The guests were shocked by the erudition of their interlocutors, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and the young Soviet intellectuals were shocked by the fact that foreigners did not value the happiness of freely reading any authors and knew nothing about them.

Some people got by with a minimum of words. A year later, a lot of dark-skinned children appeared in Moscow, who were called “children of the festival.” Their mothers were not sent to camps “for having sex with a foreigner,” as would have happened recently.

The ensemble “Friendship” and Edita Piekha with the program “Songs of the Peoples of the World” won a gold medal and the title of festival laureates. The song “Moscow Nights” performed at the closing ceremony, performed by Vladimir Troshin and Edita Piekha, became the calling card of the USSR for a long time.
Fashion for jeans, sneakers, rock and roll and badminton began to spread in the country. The musical superhits “Rock around the clock”, “Anthem of Democratic Youth”, “If only the boys of the whole Earth...” and others became popular.

The feature film “Girl with a Guitar” is dedicated to the festival: in the music store where saleswoman Tanya Fedosova (Spanish Lyudmila Gurchenko) works, preparations for the festival are underway, and at the end of the film, the festival delegates perform at a concert in the store (Tanya also performs with some of them) . Other films dedicated to the festival are “The Sailor from the Comet”, “Chain Reaction”, “The Road to Paradise”.

“Ogonyok”, 1957, No. 1, January.
“The year 1957 has arrived, a festival year. Let's take a look at what will happen in Moscow at the VI World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship, and visit those who are preparing for the holiday today.... There are few pigeons in our photo. But this is just a rehearsal. You see pigeons from the Kauchuk plant, under the very sky, at the height of a ten-story city building, Komsomol members and the youth of the plant have equipped an excellent room for the birds with central heating and hot water.”

The festival consisted of a huge number of planned events and simple unorganized and uncontrolled communication of people. During the day and evening, the delegations were busy with meetings and speeches. But late in the evening and at night free communication began. Naturally, the authorities tried to establish control over the contacts, but they did not have enough hands, since the tracers turned out to be a drop in the bucket. The weather was excellent, and crowds of people literally flooded the main highways. To better see what was happening, people climbed onto ledges and roofs of houses. Due to the influx of curious people, the roof of the Shcherbakovsky department store, located on Kolkhoznaya Square, on the corner of Sretenka and the Garden Ring, collapsed. After this, the department store was renovated for a long time, opened briefly, and then demolished. At night, people “gathered in the center of Moscow, on the roadway of Gorky Street, near the Mossovet, on Pushkinskaya Square, on Marx Avenue.

Disputes arose at every step and on every occasion, except, perhaps, politics. Firstly, they were afraid, and most importantly, they were not very interested in it in its pure form. However, in fact, any debate had a political nature, be it literature, painting, fashion, not to mention music, especially jazz. We discussed the impressionists that had recently been banned in our country, Ciurlionis, Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, and Ilya Glazunov, who was coming into fashion, with his illustrations for the works of Dostoevsky, who was not entirely desirable in the USSR. Actually, these were not so much disputes as the first attempts to freely express their opinions to others and defend them. I remember how on bright nights there were groups of people standing on the pavement of Gorky Street, in the center of each of them several people were heatedly discussing something. The rest, surrounding them in a tight ring, listened, gaining their wits, getting used to this very process - the free exchange of opinions. These were the first lessons of democracy, the first experience of getting rid of fear, the first, completely new experiences of uncontrolled communication.

During the festival, a kind of sexual revolution took place in Moscow. Young people, and especially girls, seemed to have broken free. Puritanical Soviet society suddenly witnessed events that no one expected and which shocked even me, who was then an ardent supporter of free sex. The shape and scale of what was happening was amazing. Several reasons were at work here. Beautiful warm weather, general euphoria of freedom, friendship and love, craving for foreigners and most importantly - the accumulated protest against all this puritanical pedagogy, deceitful and unnatural.

By nightfall, when it was getting dark, crowds of girls from all over Moscow made their way to the places where foreign delegations lived. These were student dormitories and hotels on the outskirts of the city. One of these typical places was the “Tourist” hotel complex, built behind VDNKh. At that time, this was the edge of Moscow, followed by collective farm fields. It was impossible for the girls to break into the buildings, since everything was cordoned off by security officers and vigilantes. But no one could prohibit foreign guests from leaving the hotels.

Events developed at the highest possible speed. No courtship, no false coquetry. The newly formed couples retreated into the darkness, into the fields, into the bushes, knowing exactly what they would immediately do. They didn't go particularly far, so the space around them was filled quite tightly, but in the dark it didn't matter. The image of a mysterious, shy and chaste Russian Komsomol girl did not exactly collapse, but rather was enriched with some new, unexpected feature - reckless, desperate debauchery.

The reaction of units of the moral and ideological order was not long in coming. Flying squads were urgently organized in trucks, equipped with lighting devices, scissors and hairdressing clippers. When trucks with vigilantes, according to the raid plan, unexpectedly drove out into the fields and turned on all the headlights and lamps, then the true scale of what was happening emerged. They didn’t touch foreigners, they dealt only with girls, and since there were too many of them, the vigilantes had no interest in finding out their identity or simply arresting them. The caught lovers of night adventures had part of their hair cut off, such a “clearing” was made, after which the girl had only one thing left to do - cut her hair bald. Immediately after the festival, Moscow residents developed a particularly keen interest in girls who wore a tightly tied scarf on their heads... Many dramas happened in families, in educational institutions and in enterprises, where it was more difficult to hide the lack of hair than just on the street, in the subway or trolleybus. It turned out to be even more difficult to hide the babies who appeared nine months later, often not similar to their own mother either in skin color or eye shape.

Naturally, I tried to visit first of all where foreign musicians performed. A huge platform was built on Pushkin Square, on which “concerts of various groups were held day and evening. It was there that I first saw an English ensemble in the skiffle style, and, in my opinion, led by Lonnie Donigan himself. The impression was quite strange. Elderly and very young people played together, using, along with ordinary acoustic guitars, various household and improvised objects such as a can-double bass, a washboard, pots, etc. In the Soviet press there was a reaction to this genre in the form of statements like: “Here are the bourgeois what have we come to, they play on washboards.” But then everything fell silent, since “skiffle” has folk roots, and folklore in the USSR was sacred.

The most fashionable and hard-to-find concerts at the festival were the jazz concerts. There was a special excitement around them, fueled by the authorities, who tried to somehow keep them secret by distributing passes among Komsomol activists. In order to “get through” to such concerts, great skill was required.

PS. In 1985, Moscow again hosted participants and guests of the Youth Festival, already the twelfth. The festival became one of the first high-profile international events during perestroika. With its help, the Soviet authorities hoped to change for the better the gloomy image of the USSR - the “evil empire.” Considerable funds were allocated for the event. Moscow was cleared of unfavorable elements, roads and streets were put in order. But they tried to keep festival guests away from Muscovites: only people who had passed Komsomol and party verification were allowed to communicate with guests. The unity that existed in 1957 during the first Moscow festival no longer happened.

In the summer of 1957, Muscovites experienced a real culture shock. Living behind the Iron Curtain, the capital's youth had the opportunity to freely communicate with their foreign peers, which had far-reaching consequences.

Atmosphere of openness

The year 1957 turned out to be extremely busy for our country. It was marked by the testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile and the launching of the nuclear icebreaker "Lenin", the launching of the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit and the sending of the first living creature - Laika - into space. In the same year, passenger air service was opened between London and Moscow, and finally, the Soviet capital hosted the VI World Festival of Youth and Students.

The festival created a real sensation in Soviet society, closed from the outside world: the capital of the USSR had never seen such an influx of foreigners. 34 thousand delegates from 131 countries came to Moscow. Many witnesses to the events are nostalgic for these bright and eventful days. Despite the ideological background of the festival, representatives of the different cultures and political preferences. To make the leisure time of international youth more comfortable, the Moscow authorities have done free access to the Kremlin and Gorky Park.

For the movement of foreign delegations were allocated open trucks, from which guests could calmly observe the life of the capital, and townspeople could observe foreigners. However, already on the first day of the festival, cars attacked by sociable Muscovites for a long time stopped on the road, which caused the participants to be late for their Grand opening forum in Luzhniki.

Over the two weeks of the festival, over eight hundred events were held, but young people were not limited by the official regulations and continued to communicate even late at night. The capital was buzzing all day long, eyewitnesses of the events recall. Late in the evening, guests of the capital and Muscovites concentrated in the center - on Pushkinskaya Square, the roadway of Gorky Street (modern Tverskaya) and on Marx Avenue (now Mokhovaya Street, Okhotny Ryad and Teatralny Proezd). Young people sang songs, listened to jazz, and discussed forbidden topics, in particular, avant-garde art.

Symbols of the past

City services prepared for the influx of foreigners in advance and the capital, according to the recollections of eyewitnesses, was noticeably transformed. The then outlandish Hungarian Icaruses appeared on the streets that were put in order, and the domestic auto industry also tried, producing the new Volga (GAZ-21) and the Festival minibus (RAF-10). By the time the events began, the Luzhniki Stadium and the Ukraine Hotel were completed.

To this day, Muscovites are reminded of this event by city toponymy: Mira Avenue, Festivalnaya Street, Druzhba Park. The latter was created specifically for the festival by young specialists - graduates of the Moscow Architectural Institute.

During the festival, the program “Evening of Fun Questions” (abbreviated VBB) appeared on Soviet television for the first time. True, it was aired only three times. Four years later, the BBB author's team will create a new product that has become a television brand for many decades - the KVN program.

Two years after the youth forum, the Moscow Film Festival was resumed, where Soviet viewers received unique opportunity get acquainted with the latest in world cinema, including Western cinema that is practically unknown in the country.

In 1955, the poet Mikhail Matusovsky and composer Vasily Solovyov-Sedy wrote the song “Moscow Nights” for the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the RSFSR, but Muscovites loved the work so much that they decided to make it official song VI Festival of Youth and Students. She not only became one of musical symbols capital, but also the Soviet melody most recognizable to foreigners.

Communication with benefits

Among the delegations that visited the USSR was an American one, which at the height of the “ cold war“Perhaps the closest attention of the public was attracted. Experts say that it was then that the Soviet Union first learned about rock and roll, jeans and flared skirts.

Meeting at the festival with American culture became more developed: two years later the American National Exhibition came to the capital, which, according to the organizers, was supposed to stun the Soviet people, deprived of many basic things. It was since 1959 that the Pepsi-Cola drink became widespread in the USSR.

But let's get back to the festival. For the youth forum, the Soviet light industry produced clothing with festival symbols in batches. Treasured scarves or T-shirts, decorated with a stylized flower with five multi-colored petals, sold like hot cakes. There wasn't enough for everyone. This is where the black marketeers surfaced, offering the coveted goods at exorbitant prices.

However, not only Soviet citizens, but also crowds of foreigners walking along the Moscow streets became targets for speculators of all stripes. The most popular commodity was American dollars, which black marketeers bought from foreigners at a little higher than the official exchange rate, set at 4 rubles for 10 dollars. But they resold the “green” ones to their fellow citizens at a 10-fold markup.

It was during the Moscow festival that the vigorous activity of the future tycoons of the country’s illegal currency market began - Rokotov, Yakovlev and Faibyshenko, whose high-profile trial in 1961 ended with a death sentence.

"Children of the Festival"

For Soviet society, squeezed within the framework of ideological control in matters of sexual behavior, the festival became a kind of marker of sexual emancipation. Eyewitnesses recall how crowds of girls from all over Moscow flocked to the outskirts of the city to the dormitories where the delegates lived. It was impossible to get inside the buildings, which were vigilantly guarded by the police, but no one forbade guests to go outside. And then, without any preludes, the international couples retired into the darkness (fortunately the weather allowed) to indulge in forbidden pleasures.

However, the ideological bodies, which considered it their duty to monitor moral character Soviet citizens very quickly organized flying squads. And so, armed with powerful flashlights, scissors and hairdressing clippers, the guardians of morality looked for lovers, and part of the hair on the head of lovers of night adventures caught at the scene of the “crime” was cut off.

The girl with a bald “clearing” on her head had no choice but to shave her head. Residents of the capital then looked disapprovingly at young representatives of the fairer sex who wore a tightly tied scarf on their heads.

And 9 months after the youth festival, the phrase “children of the festival” firmly entered into Soviet everyday life. Many argued that a “color baby boom” occurred in Moscow at this time. The famous jazz saxophonist Alexei Kozlov, recalling the atmosphere of liberation that reigned in Moscow in the summer of 1957, noted that immigrants from African countries were of particular interest to girls in the capital.

Historian Natalya Krylova is not inclined to exaggerate the scale of the birth rate of mestizos. They, in her words, were small. According to a summary statistical extract prepared for the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, after the festival the birth of 531 children of mixed races was recorded. For Moscow with a population of five million, this was negligible.

To freedom

The main result of the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow was, albeit partial, the opening of the “Iron Curtain” and the subsequent warming of the social climate in the country. Soviet people took a different look at fashion, behavior and lifestyle. In the 60s full voice The dissident movement made itself known, and bold breakthroughs were made in literature, art, music and cinema.

The festival itself pleased and surprised visitors with the richness and variety of events. Thus, the Udarnik cinema showed 125 films from 30 countries, most of which just yesterday would have been classified as banned cinema by censorship. An exhibition of abstract artists was held in Gorky Park with the participation of Jackson Pollock, who did not fit into the canons of socialist realism promoted in the USSR.

In 1985, the twelfth festival of youth and students returned to Moscow. It became one of the symbols of the emerging perestroika. Soviet authorities hoped that the festival would be able to dispel negative perceptions of the USSR abroad. The capital was then thoroughly cleared of unfavorable elements, but at the same time, other Muscovites were protected from close contact with foreign guests. Only persons who had passed a strict ideological selection were allowed to communicate. Many then noticed that there was no such unity of youth as in 1957 in pre-perestroika Moscow.

RGANTD continues to publish amateur photographs of Boris Evseevich Chertok from his unique collection of photographic documents, the first photographs of which date back to the 1930s. XX century. Part of the photographic documents from the archive of B.E. Chertoka (Fund No. 36) was published earlier:

Chertok Boris Evseevich (03/01/1912, Lodz (Poland) - 12/14/2011, Moscow) - one of the founders of the theory and practice of creating control systems for rockets and spacecraft, founder of a scientific school, academician Russian Academy Sciences, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, full member of the International Academy of Astronautics, Hero of Socialist Labor, Lenin laureate (1957) and State Prize(1976), awarded two Orders of Lenin (1956, 1961), the Order October revolution, Order of the Red Banner of Labor, Order of the Red Star, Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree. With his direct participation, the first ballistic missiles, the first artificial Earth satellites, automatic vehicles to the Moon, Mars and Venus, Molniya communication satellites, manned Earth sensing satellites were created. spaceships and orbital stations. and other objects.

In November 1945, representatives of 63 states decided to hold World Festivals of Youth and Students. The first festival was held in Prague in 1947, it was attended by 17 thousand people from 71 countries, then festivals were held in Budapest (1949), Berlin (1951), Bucharest (1953), Warsaw (1955). ). And finally, in July 1957, Moscow hosted the VI World Festival of Youth and Students.

The festival, which took place from July 28 to August 11, 1957, turned out to be the largest in terms of the number of people and events - 34 thousand people from 131 countries of the world arrived in Moscow.

For the 60th anniversary of the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, photographs of the first day of the festival, namely the passage and passage of foreign delegations through Moscow on July 28, 1957, are published for the first time. Of particular interest are photographs not only of the festival participants, but also views of that Moscow in the late 1950s. x years, which no longer exists.

The number of festival participants was so significant that there were not enough buses to transport everyone at once. Then it was decided to use trucks (GAZ-51A, ZIL-150, ZIL-121), decorated with the main symbol of the festival - the daisy, its image can be seen in the photograph of the Main Entrance State Library USSR named after IN AND. Lenin. In the center of the daisy is an image globe with the inscription “For peace and friendship”, and along the edges there are five multi-colored petals, symbolizing the five continents: the red petal is Europe, the yellow petal is Asia, the blue petal is America, the purple petal is Africa, and the green petal is Australia. The entire cars were painted in the same colors, the sides were covered with shields, and the most recognizable symbols of the countries participating in the festival were applied to the shields and cabin. Unfortunately, B.E. Chertok used black and white film for shooting, which did not convey all color scheme. Cars were assigned specifically to each delegation in accordance with the color of their continent and the symbol of the country. The procession of festival participants passed from the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition along B. Galushkina Street adjacent to Mira Avenue, to Luzhniki, where its grand opening took place.

Prepared the publication L. Uspenskaya with the participation of a student from the Russian State University for the Humanities O. Berezovskaya.

Scanning and description of photographic documents A. Ionov.