«The guests have come from far away. There is no end to the joy»…
Confucius
On July 14, Moscow hosted the Second Moscow Festival of Chinese National Sports, Culture and Arts "Confucius Cup".
The festival opened with the Anthems of Russia and China.
The opening ceremony took place at the Moscow House of Nationalities of the Department of National Policy and Interregional Relations of the Moscow Government.
The host of the opening ceremony was Dimitri Alekseevich Sagal, General Director of the Foundation for the Promotion of Sports and World Culture, member of the Council for Nationalities under the Government of the City of Moscow, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Secretary of the Organizing Committee of the Moscow Festival of Chinese Sports and Arts "Confucius Cup".
The festival was welcomed by numerous dignitaries, including:
- Gong Jiajia, Cultural Counsellor, Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Russian Federation;
- Zhou Liqun, Chairman of the Union of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Russia;
- Yulia Gennadievna Kapranova, Executive Director of the Russia-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development;
- Sergei Sergeevich Anufrienko, director of the Moscow House of Nationalities;
- Elena Borisovna Shumilova, Senator of the Russian Federation, representative of the legislative (representative) body of state power of the Komi Republic;
- Nadezhda Vladimirovna Pavlova, President of the Russian City Sports Federation;
- Han Xu Mei, one of the leaders of the Hua Min Corporation;
- leadership of the Russian Federation of GO (Go is a logical board game with a deep strategic content that originated in ancient China, according to various estimates, from 2 to 5 thousand years ago).
Nikolai Mikhailovich Kharitonov, Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic expressed the wishes for the success to the festival in his greeting.
A special greeting to the festival was conveyed from the famous Soviet and Russian rhythmic gymnastics coach, teacher, doctor of pedagogical sciences, professor, President of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics Irina Aleksandrovna Viner.
The festival was also welcomed on behalf of the organizing committee of the All-Russian public movement "Russian Dream", whose leader is an outstanding Russian Soviet writer, publicist, political and public figure, member of the secretariat of the Writers' Union of Russia, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Tomorrow", chairman and one of the founders of the Izborsk Club Alexander Andreevich Prokhanov.
“The Confucius Cup was created to further strengthen and develop cooperation between Russia and China in the field of sports and culture,” - said one of the initiators and authors of the Moscow Confucius Cup festival, Chairman of the Board of the Regional Public Organization of Confucian Experts Jiang Yanbin.
“The Confucius Cup is a new format event designed to popularize a healthy lifestyle and cultural cooperation through the successful interaction between Russia and China,” - stressed Fyodor Dragoy, co-chairman of the Confucius Cup, Chairman of the Commission on Security, Public Control and Public Diplomacy under the Government of Moscow.
The President of the Kung Fu Federation in Russia, Kamil Magomedovich Echilov, noted the high level of training of the participants in the Confucius Cup 2022.
The festival program includes exhibition projects and master classes: calligraphy, tea art, ethnic instrumental music, Go game, Chinese cuisine, Chinese medicine and healthcare experience.
The round table devoted to cooperation between Russia and China in the field of literature and poetry was held by Nikolai Ivanovich Zhdanov-Lutsenko, Russian poet, prose writer, publicist, Secretary of State of the Writers' Union of Russia, Honored Writer of the MGO SPR.
The round table brought together the best experts, including:
- famous and legendary Yuri Vadimovich Tavrovsky, Soviet and Russian orientalist, journalist, traveler, professor at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, member of the Presidium of the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio, key newsmaker and strategic expert on the Russian-Chinese agenda of federal Russian channels, Chairman of the Expert Council of the Russian-Chinese Friendship, Peace and Development Committee;
- Bai Sihong, member of the Union of Chinese Writers, member of the Union of Cinematographers of the Russian Federation, member of the Union of Theater Workers of China, member of the Union of Chinese Writers in Europe, member of the International Union of Economists;
- Yin Bin, Chairman of the Board of the Center for Russian-Chinese Humanitarian Cooperation and Development, Ph.D., professor.
One of the venues for the Confucius Cup was the Moscow Association of Confucianists. It hosted a large-scale session of entrepreneurs from Russia and China.
The festival hosted an exclusive screening of the documentary film-presentation dedicated to Confucius, “THE PATH”, created by the exclusive Russian theater and educational project “I See. Geniuses of the World. Confucius". It includes the first verse play "The Way" in Russian and Chinese dramaturgy, created in Russian in the original lexical style of the most ancient Chinese characters. The music for the play was written by the modern neoclassical composer and innovator Tigran Jager. The co-chair of the project is Nadezhda Gerashchenko, a legendary information journalist and an authoritative expert in launching strategically significant initiatives and projects with the participation of society and the state.
The initiator of the project is the laureate of the All-Russian Prize "PRIDE OF THE NATION" (2021) in the nomination for personal contribution to strengthening interethnic relations, member of the General Council, Chairman of the Eurasian Tourism Security Council of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly, Confucius Tourism Ambassador (2018), organizer of the World Antiviral Campaign "China, hold on! Wuhan, hold on!" (2020), Ambassador of Happiness of China (2021), author and head of the International Integration Independent Public Program "CIS + WORLD" and subprogram "CIS + CHINA", author and head of a series of large-scale events and the radio program of the same name "Revival of Man" Anastasia Pavlova. Project coordinator - Ivan Karpenko.
“We have long years of friendly cooperation with China. The Confucius Cup Festival is an event prepared by our old friends and partners. They have carried out a huge successful work, which causes a feeling of deep respect. That is why it was decided to show our presentation film "THE WAY" first at this festival. Our presentation film is an absolute exclusive. Poems, music, video - everything was created specifically for one purpose - to strengthen friendship and cooperation between Russia and China. The Confucius Cup 2022 became the first platform before a large-scale series of screenings of our film for Russian, Chinese and international audiences. The play and film presentation of the audio performance "The Way" were created by our public initiative as a sign of respect for all the Chinese people. For more than 20 years I have been studying the traditions of China and promoting the values of this nation, I became the Confucius Tourism Ambassador (2018), the organizer of the World Antiviral Campaign “China, hold on! Wuhan, hold on!" (2020), Happiness Ambassador of China (2021). We decided to publicly show our new project for the first time at the Confucius Cup festival, as its organizers are old friends of our initiative. We express our gratitude for the fruitful cooperation to the Chairman of the Board of the Moscow Public Organization of Confucian Experts Jian Yanbin, the Secretary of the Organizing Committee of the Confucius Cup, the expert of the Izborsk Club Dmitry Alekseevich Sagal, the Chairman of the Commission on Public Security and Public Diplomacy of the Council for Nationalities under the Government of the City of Moscow Fedor Georgievich Dragoy " , - stressed Anastasia Pavlova, co-chairman of the public initiative "Time of Man" and the author of the play.
“The uniqueness of this event lies in the fact that this is actually the first literary work about Confucius, written by a Russian author in Russian in verse and in the style of the thinker's direct speech. The author of the play, Anastasia Pavlova, is a member of the General Council of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly and has long been engaged in the creation of poetic literary works, dedicating them to the geniuses of the world, as well as to individual countries, for example, as part of the Poetic Map of the World series,” - said the co-chair of the public socio-cultural initiative “Human Time” Nadezhda Gerashchenko.
She explained that since 2022, the author’s ideas, along with a series of thematic neoclassical works by composer Tigran Jager, formed the basis for the formation of a family of educational projects of the sociocultural initiative “Human Time”: “I see. Geniuses of the World”, “Revival of Man”.
“We are engaged in the search and concentrated formation of innovative inclusive tools that help integrate people with disabilities into the world of culture, poetry, music, theater,” - Nadezhda Gerashchenko also explained.
According to her, earlier presentations of the audio performance “I See. Leonardo da Vinci" from the "Geniuses of the World" series at the Russian State Library for the Blind (RGBS), a permanent festival "Revival of Man" was launched using cross-genre communications and the participation of "special" children and adults with disabilities. A series of radio broadcasts, prepared jointly with the All-Russian Society of the Blind, has been released. These events are held with the participation of specialists and methodologists working with people with disabilities.
“Together with the composer Tigran Jager, we came up with an unusual synthesis, where a poetic text on behalf of Confucius, conveying the meanings of ancient hieroglyphics, read in my author’s voice, and neoclassical music with elements of Chinese style and instruments become a single canvas of narration. At the same time, the task was to touch upon the principle of inclusiveness for those people who, in particular, have visual impairments. That is why this is an “audio performance”, where I name the roles of the characters, I make remarks. It is somewhat reminiscent of radio shows, but we add dynamic, impressive video sequences that reveal the depth of the meanings of the life of geniuses and the charm of places, eras and ethnic groups for a wide range of people. In fact, this is a virtual socio-cultural tourism. In addition, there are communications in the area of theater and cinema. To date, we are receiving requests for productions in the theater and cinema, we are now in close dialogue with a number of directors. We often hear that today there is a lack of such educational content in high-quality artistic embodiment,” - shared Anastasia Pavlova.
“I think we have succeeded in creating a bridge between European and Asian cultures through the penetration of authors of non-Chinese ethnic origin into the topic of Confucius, Chinese philosophy, worldview and music. For me it was not easy, but a unique and extremely interesting experience. I am deeply familiar with the oriental motifs of the music of the Transcaucasian region, being from there. And some of the sounds of Chinese instruments are somewhere akin to my usual ones, but this is a different structure, mode, especially since we are talking about the neoclassical understanding of traditional Chinese music. For the first time in my work, a "Chinese" album appeared - this is an interesting inter-ethnic synthesis of European neo-symphony and Asian "epic". In this I was helped by the principle of Confucius, who saw the cosmological, and therefore universal, nature of music,” - said the composer Tigran Jager.
"It is not the path that makes the man, but the man makes his way."
Confucius