To mark the 130th anniversary of the Vasily Polenov House Museum in 2022, the museum-reserve of the artist is holding three summer picnics weekends. Each of the three weekends is a traditional picnic: nature, flowers and trees, blankets and tablecloths, cool drinks and food baskets. In the space of the summer estate, outdoor recreation is combined with music, theater, lectures, an art market, games and dancing. The picnic in Polenovo is a space of free culture, without borders and strict forms. The creative events of picnics – from folklore songs to modern theatrical laboratories – coexist, forming the most universal art, the meaning of which is enlightenment, bringing beauty and joy.
The entire picnic program is centered around the Summer Scene and the Maze. There is also a gastronomic space: a food court, a market, and picnic areas on the grass. On the playground nearby, guests can engage in active games and take an intensive acting course. Intellectual entertainment and sketching are also provided here.
Every Friday picnic permanent residents of the Moscow Alexey Kozlov Club together with Tula jazzmen present the DownTownBeat Party project, which has no stylistic and genre boundaries and forms, but unites performers who are not indifferent to jazz music. The picnics themselves will be held on July 1-2-3; July 15-16-17; August 12-13-14.
The first weekend – July 1, 2, 3- is dedicated to the theater. The final screenings of the Creative Laboratory of the Theater of Nations will be held all Saturday on the summer stage at the manor. On Sunday, the St. Petersburg Papiemashenniki Theater will show the traditional petrushka performance "True!Hey!Tru!". The music on the first weekend is represented by live folklore – the voice of Sergei Starostin, a veteran of the folk scene, organically combined with the sound of folk brass and ethnic percussion by Marian Caldararu, as well as an acoustic chamber project by musicians of the Moscow blues scene Yuri Novgorodsky and the Moonshine Trio.
The program of events for the first weekend.
The second weekend – July 15, 16, 17 – is preparing a diverse music program. The Moscow band Hodila Izba, a favorite of summer festivals, experiments from funk to trip-hop based on folk songs and jazz sound. Pyotr Vostokov, a Moscow trumpeter who holds a leading position in the younger generation of jazz brass players and the leader of the Bolshoi Jazz Orchestra, is leading the program "There is no Moon Yet". Tula musicians present authentic folklore combined with modern electronic music in the new Runa Project program and original indie music from the Oksioma project.
The third August weekend – August 12, 13, 14 – the focus is on music again. A real feast for music lovers is the stylish program of one of the brightest soul singers in the capital, Svetlana Zhavoronkova, and the Acoustic Soul group, which does not recognize any stylistic limitations. Brisk retro blues rock with a touch of psychedelics in the spirit of the golden era of rock and roll in the early 70s from the Moscow band "Let's Go". The creative association "Pyotr Valentinovich" – Moscow folklorists, singers and dancers – sing different music to many voices, from folk to academic and modern author's music, as well as arrange favorite songs of their parents' youth. The Tula folklore ensemble "Verenitsa" works with the Tula song tradition and does it professionally and fascinatingly.
