The JetLAG Festival showcases Russian, Slavic, and East European music in New York’s Catskill Mountains since 2008. The organizers had considered cancelling the event this year. This was a decision that was made by two other Russian diaspora music gatherings this summer on the east coast. They decided to continue the show after they resolved to raise funds to help Ukraine.
JetLAG is where a variety of subcultures come together. Major Russian bands – including those performing cabaret, rock, and reggae – are invited to JetLAG every summer. They were unable to obtain visas this year to perform at the festival.
Pavel Lion, JetLAG’s creative Director, said that “that is a shame.” He performs as Psoy Kolenko. Moscow was once home to Lion.
This year, approximately 2,800 people attended the event, many of them from New York and Boston. 500 people were performers, volunteers, or those running workshops in theater, yoga, and crafts.
Tents and RVs had been set up, and children rode their bikes around the campsite of 300 acres. They were just a stone’s throw away from the East Branch, Delaware River. It was icy cold, but not deep enough for swimming.
Festival-goers dressed in colorful, see-through rain gear, and instruments for The Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band were illuminated with LEDs to play in the dark.
This year’s JetLAG Festival: The Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band
Due to the conflict in Ukraine, two performers from the festival fled Russia. Alyosha, 24 years old, quit his job in Moscow as a graphic designer and now lives in Maryland with his grandmother, a prominent attorney.
NPR’s Levstein stated that it was not an easy decision to leave. “I have to start work, find new people, rent [an apartment], all that stuff right now and apparently I don’t have any clue how to handle it.”
Vitaly Prismototrov, the bass player, fled Russia just before the war began and was detained in a camp after crossing into Arizona via Mexico. Prismototrov was part of a Russian-speaking band called the Flying Balkan Laikas at JetLAG. He was an unexpected addition to the group.
JetLAG’s key personnel have been devoted to helping war-ravaged Ukraine. Alice Feldman, co-creative director, quit her job as a talent agency in Western Massachusetts and joined the Global Disaster Relief Team. Daniil Cherkassky (a Chicago-based performance artist, was born in Kyiv) co-founded Ukraine TrustChain, which raised $1.2million to evacuate and feed 36,000 Ukrainians. This effort continues today.
Cherkassky said to NPR that he noticed a change in campfire singing at JetLAG this past year due to Russian songs being deemed toxic in certain circles. Cherkassky has been singing old Soviet propaganda songs for years. The 39-year-old singer decided that this material was not appropriate at the time.
He explained that it used to be fun to sing about communist regime fantasies about colonizing stars, because there was distance. It was in the past. It felt safe to use because the Soviet Union had collapsed.
Cherkassky instead sang traditional Ukrainian folk songs at JetLAG. He admitted that he sometimes cried while he sang.
