Baltic Week St.Petersburg 1997 (13.-18. September)

The Baltic Week St.Petersburg 1997 has taken place after all. This is a great success that our Russian friends can rightly be proud of. They showed us the sights of their wonderful city and they fed us frequently and copiously wherever we went. We enjoyed the warm-harted hospitality of many, many Russian families, in whose homes we felt more crusial than anything else, the language barrier, organization proved to be extremly difficult.

So many problems could only be solved rather inadequatly and some problems cold not be solved at all. The opening ceremony at the Strelna waterfront was overshadowed by the news that the Finnish bus had been robbed the night before and some of the fancy-dresses of the Ålanders had been stolen. Sill quite alot of the young people cold show themselves in the glamour of their wonderful historical costumes during periods of sunshine in the park of Peter the Great´s castle in Peterhof, where we had all taken part in the big fountain-festival the night before.

The number of spectators there had been so large that some people where afraid of being suffocated in the crowd while ashes of the fireworks rained down on their bare heads. Monday was spent in Pushkin town (Zarskoje Selo). We where much impressed by the luxury in the place of Czar Nicolas II, and we enjoyed our lunch in a school cafeteria. Unfortunately our young Russian partners could hardly ever be with us. After a lot of unnecessary "Waiting for Godot", as Elisabeth from poland put it, an ecological contest took place in the park infront of the castle. It was won by the Latvians, who turned out to be one of the most popular groups on the festival.

They also had the two sweetest lovers: Artis and Taja. While the young where trying to enjoye themselves in a little disco, the teachers assembled in a nearby cafe´. There were enough chairs but not enough drinks available. Nevertheless we appreciated one of the rare occasions on wich we could meet and talk each other. On Tuseday our four buses took us on a sigtseeing-tour to St.Petersburg.

We were all much impressed by what we got to see, but were especially grateful becaus we were also given a chanse to take first glance at art collections in the world-famous "Eremitage", the former winter palace of the czarswhere Lenin´s revolution started in October 1917, just about 80 years ago. The day ended in the Philharmonia, the great concert hall of St.Petersburg, where we listened to music composed by Rachmaninov and Schostakovitsh.

This was truely one of the highlights of our jurneyto St.Petersburg. On Wednesday the town of Gatchina was on the program. It took us almost three hours to get there, because four buses were waiting for another one that hade already left. Wednesday turned out to be full of suprises. It was a day of waiting, confusion and disappointment. The People in the sports-hall, were the games took place, told us there was a blackout and that there could not be any swiming.

Hardly had our young people begun to enjoy themselves playing basket-ball, when we were suddenly told to leav for lunch in a little restaurant, where Sigita from Jelegava and Margarita from Petrodvoretz helped To serve us a really good meal. But when we were finally taken back to the sports-hall and the girls and boys were eagerly looking forward to continuing their games, we suddenly found the hall closed for some unknown reason. So we could only take down our ecological and historical posters and exhibitions from the walls of the corridor and go back to our buses again. We were then taken to a music-hall, where rather unexpectedly, there was held some sort of farwell cermony and the Baltic Week flag was handed over to our friends from Finland who have already begun to preper for the Baltic Week 1999 in the community of Vihti in Nummela.

This announcment was hailed by universal applause. After the Baltic Week was officially over and the groups from Finland and Lithuania had alredy left home, the Baltic Week sprit was revived on Thursday, when after another excursion to Peterburg, the rest of the BW-people assembled in the schkola 419 in Petrodvoretz to listen to and see music, songs and dances preformed by the groups from Germany, Latvia and Sweden as well as by our Russian hosts who all gave us great pleasure with their wonderful preformances.

So our festival ended with the feeling that the Baltic Week Idea is still alive and will survive even in the future. The 'oldtimers' of the Baltic Week, Elisabeth Hedenfalk and Eva Löwer from Norrtälje, Karsten Stainer from Åland, Antonia Nikolaeva from Petrodworetz, Rita Siimpoeg from Kärdla,Elsbieta Parrot from Colberg and Hannes Fechter from Schleswig, Who had all been present at the memorable opening conference on Åkerögård in November 1990, are all sure that, with the help of the many ´newcomers´, we will be able to take up our common ecological cause again. Our Finnish friends will certainly see to that. When we went home, we were cram-full of all sorts of experiences.

New friends have been made, new links between schools have been established, invitations were given and accepted, young and not so young people embraced each other, tears of farewell were shed and promises to see each other again were given. What else can we ask for? The organizers had a tremendously hard job to tackle with and certanly did their best to make the Baltic Week Petersburg a memorable experiense. We have to be grateful to all of them. But we ought to express our special thanks to Winfriend Wellmann from Satru, who, due to his excellent command of the Russian language and and his persistent efforts to keep up communication has made an indispenseble contribution to the success of the Baltic Week in St.

Petersburg. Ley us also say how much we apperciated the efforts od Andrejs Salzirnis, Sitta Bromberg, Karsten Steiner and of others who tried to keep things going whenever spirits began to flag. What will also be gratefully remembered by all of us in the overwhelming hospitality of our Russian host families who gave us their beds, cocked the most opulent meals for us and patiently waited for us in the dark when our buses arrived back home late as they usually did.

We say a 'bolschoi spassiba' to all of them! Especially I'd like to mention the name of Natalja Shabanova, who got up in the small hours of fer wedding day to see her guests off. Let us all remain good friends!

Hannes Fechter