All-Union Youth Festival 1957. The first world festival of youth and students in the USSR (1957)

The VI World Festival of Youth and Students opened on July 28, 1957 in Moscow. Closing was on August 11th. The festival's guests included 34,000 people from 131 countries. The slogan of the festival is “For peace and friendship.” It was preceded by the All-Union Festival of Soviet Youth.
The symbol of the youth forum was the Dove of Peace, invented by Pablo Picasso. For the festival, the Druzhba Park, the Ukraine Hotel, and the Luzhniki Stadium were opened in Moscow. Hungarian Ikarus buses appeared in the capital for the first time, and the first GAZ-21 Volga cars were produced. The Moscow Kremlin was opened for free visits.

Moscow was literally buzzing. The main influx of people was concentrated in the center, on the streets of Gorky, on Pushkin Square, Marx Avenue, Garden Ring. Young people talked, sang songs, listened to jazz, discussed about the recently banned impressionists, about Hemingway and Remarque, Yesenin and Zoshchenko, about everything that worried young minds.

For the first time in many years, the “Iron Curtain” was opened, dividing the world into two camps. For Soviet people, the 6th World Festival changed their views on fashion, behavior, and lifestyle, accelerating the pace of change. Khrushchev's "thaw" dissident movement, a breakthrough in literature and painting - all this began precisely in the whirlwind of the festival.

For the residents of Moscow, it came as a real shock, everything they saw and felt was so unexpected. Now it is even useless to try to explain to people of new generations what was hidden behind the word “foreigner” back then.

Constant propaganda aimed at instilling hatred of everything foreign led to the fact that this very word aroused a mixed feeling of fear and admiration in the Soviet citizen. 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 contacts, but they did not have enough hands.

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 became a witness to events that no one expected. The shape and scale of what was happening was amazing. 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. It was impossible for the girls to break into the buildings, since everything was cordoned off by the police and vigilantes. But no one could prohibit foreign guests from leaving the hotels. 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.

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, equipped with lighting devices, scissors and hairdressing clippers.

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 wearing a tightly tied scarf on their heads...

Crowds of foreigners wandering around the city from morning to night provoked a surge in activity among black marketeers.

They bought “green” ones from foreign guests at a little more expensive than at the official rate (at that time in the USSR the ratio of 4 rubles to 10 dollars was voluntarily established), and then sold them on the black market at a 10-fold profit. It was during the VI World Youth Festival that the future “pillars” of the illegal currency market Rokotov, Faibyshenko, Yakovlev began their activities, whose high-profile case in 1961 ended with a death sentence.

A lot of drama 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.

And in the spring of the following year, 1958, Moscow was covered by a “black wave”. Dark-skinned babies appeared one after another in the capital's maternity hospitals. It didn’t take long to look for the reason for this demographic phenomenon, and therefore the language appeared new term- “children of the festival.”

For the youth forum, the factories sewed women's scarves, dresses and skirts in large quantities, decorated with the festival emblem - a stylized flower with five multi-colored petals.

Such clothes were in great demand in the USSR in those days.

During the holiday, the Soviet “leadership authorities” allowed an unprecedented “action of freethinking.” An exhibition of abstract artists, including the famous Jackson Pollock, the leader of the American Expressionists, was organized in Gorky Park.

On music competition, which was part of the festival program, the song “Moscow Nights” was performed for the first time. The future “hit of all times” was performed by singer Vladimir Troshin.
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This postcard from that year is kept in my collection. Interestingly, the flags of the USA and Cuba on the ball are located next to each other. Who could have guessed then that in 5 years there would be Caribbean crisis and peace will be on the eve of world war, and after 58 years these countries will restore diplomatic relations. relationship...

Our flag is next to the UK flag. I was born in August '57. It’s interesting that in 55 years a part of my life will be connected with this country...

11. 05. 2016 3 280

Interview with Lyubov Borisova, daughter of Konstantin Mikhailovich Kuzginov, a Moscow artist, author of the emblem of the World Festival of Youth and Students.

The ideas of the World Festival of Youth and Students are succinctly and succinctly reflected in its symbol - the dear and beloved festival daisy. It is noteworthy that it was created in the Soviet Union by the Moscow artist Konstantin Mikhailovich Kuzginov.

– Tell us how your father’s idea earned worldwide recognition?

– The basis for the success that befell my father in his work on the emblem of the VI Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow was the fact that how professional artist by that time he had already created a number of posters that decorated festivals in Budapest and Berlin in 1949 and 1951. But let's go back to 1957. An All-Union competition was announced to create an emblem for the festival, in which anyone could take part. In total, about 300 sketches from all over the Union were presented. The jury immediately drew attention to my father's flower, which was simple, but at the same time unique. The fact is that the sketches sent to the competition either repeated Pablo Picasso’s dove, which was the symbol of the first youth festival, or suffered from the complexity of the drawing. The latter was unacceptable, since when the scale was changed, for example to a breastplate, the emblem lost its meaning. Vasily Ardamatsky in his book “Five Petals” writes that “real art does not tolerate repetition,” so the idea associated with the image of a dove also did not become relevant. As the newspapers reported at the time, the emblem won the hearts of the participants of the world youth festival. Therefore, in 1958, the Vienna Congress of the World Federation of Democratic Youth announced that Konstantin Kuzginov’s daisy was taken as a permanent basis for all subsequent forums. Now the whole world knows this emblem. Today it is the starting point for the upcoming 60th anniversary of the festival of youth and students of Russia.

– How did the festival daisy bloom?

– In one of the interviews, my father said: “I wondered: what is a festival? And he answered like this - youth, friendship, peace and life. What more precisely can symbolize all this? While working on sketches of the emblem, I was at the dacha when flowers were blooming everywhere. The association was born quickly and surprisingly simply. Flower. Core – Earth, and around there are 5 continental petals.” The petals frame the blue globe of the Earth, on which the festival motto is written: “For peace and friendship.” I also remember he said that he was inspired as an athlete by the Olympic rings - a symbol of the unity of athletes around the world. The festival chamomile is so firmly rooted in the memory of generations and the culture of the festival that today, in my opinion, it is extremely difficult to come up with something new, more capacious and concise. It is very important to preserve it, because it is the history and heritage of our country.

– You have collected a very interesting collection of various items with the symbols of the festival.

- Yes, my dad started collecting it. Then I continued. This is a unique collection of artifacts. And it’s great when everyday things are decorated with the emblem of such a bright event. In the collection, in addition to icons, postcards and stamps, you can see a cup, mugs, matchboxes, cufflinks, photo albums and much more. Thanks to antique stores and all kinds of flea markets, I am still adding to this collection. I think that this experience should definitely be used when organizing the upcoming festival. You always want to leave something as a keepsake. Back in 1957, they understood that they needed their own unique symbol, in the image of which the spirit of the festival would be embedded. And the involvement of modern youth in the creation of something similar, the opportunity to take initiative, and perhaps discover new talents thanks to the competition, is an absolute plus.

– And in conclusion, what would your father wish for the future participants of the XIX World Festival of Youth and Students 2017?

“I think he would be happy to learn that our country will host this grandiose event again, and would wish the Festival and its participants prosperity, joy, happiness, peace and friendship.” There are many epithets, but the main thing is that young people are imbued with these words and keep them in their hearts.

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 - Commie 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 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. Central Park culture and recreation named after Gorky 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. To the black envoys of Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia (then these countries had just been liberated from colonial dependence) journalists rushed, Moscow girls also hurried towards 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 a specially invented program “Evening of Fun Questions” by the TV editorial office “Festivalnaya”. There was a discussion 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 views 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.

At the opening ceremony in Luzhniki, a dance and sports number was performed by 3,200 athletes, and 25 thousand pigeons were released from the eastern stand.
In Moscow, amateur pigeon keepers were specifically exempted from work. One hundred thousand birds were raised for the festival and the healthiest and most active ones were selected.

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 an affair 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 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 around the clock”, “Anthem of Democratic Youth”, “If only the boys of the whole Earth...” and others became popular.
Dedicated to the festival Feature Film“Girl with a Guitar”: in a music store where saleswoman Tanya Fedosova works (Spanish: Lyudmila Gurchenko) preparations are underway to the festival, 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 ocean. 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 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.

“Ogonyok”, 1957, No. 33 August.
“...A big and free conversation is taking place today at the festival. And it was this frank, friendly exchange of opinions that confused some bourgeois journalists who came to the festival. Their newspapers apparently demand " iron curtain", scandals, "communist propaganda". But there is none of this on the streets. At the festival there is dancing, singing, laughter and great serious conversation. A conversation people need."
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 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 metro or on a 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.

International friendship knew no bounds, and when the wave of enthusiasm subsided, numerous “children of the festival” remained like nimble crabs on the sand, wet from girlish tears—contraception was tight in the Land of the Soviets.

In a summary statistical extract prepared for the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. It records the birth of 531 post-festival children (of all races). For Moscow with a population of five million (at that time), it was vanishingly small.

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 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 at the festival were 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 his help 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.

At the opening ceremony in Luzhniki, a dance and sports number was performed by 3,200 athletes, and 25 thousand pigeons were released from the eastern stand.
In Moscow, amateur pigeon keepers were specifically exempted from work. One hundred thousand birds were raised for the festival and the healthiest and most active ones were selected.

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 ocean. 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.

"Ogonyok", 1957, No. 33 August.
“...A big and free conversation is taking place today at the festival. And it was this frank, friendly exchange of opinions that confused some bourgeois journalists who came to the festival. Their newspapers apparently demand an “Iron Curtain,” scandals, and “communist propaganda.” But there is none of this on the streets. At the festival there is dancing, singing, laughter and a lot of serious conversation. A conversation people need."

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.

International friendship knew no bounds, and when the wave of enthusiasm subsided, numerous “children of the festival” remained like nimble crabs on the sand, wet from girlish tears - contraceptives were tight in the Land of the Soviets.
In a summary statistical extract prepared for the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. It records the birth of 531 post-festival children (of all races). For Moscow with a population of five million (at that time), it was vanishingly small.

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.

© Yuri Nabatov /TASS

In 2017, our country will host the festival for the third time.

TASS DOSSIER. On October 14-22, 2017, Russia will host XIX World Festival of Youth and Students (VFMS). On the first day, October 14, an international student parade-carnival will take place in Moscow. The main events, including the official opening (October 15) and closing (October 21) ceremonies, will take place in Sochi.

XIX WFMS will be the third festival held in our country.

The editors of TASS-DOSSIER have prepared material about the sixth and twelfth festivals held in the USSR in 1957 and 1985.

VI VFMS

In 1957, the World Festival of Youth and Students was held for the first time on the territory of the USSR. VI WFMS was held in Moscow for two weeks - from July 28 to August 11. It brought together 34 thousand participants from 131 countries.

The festival's emblem was invented by Moscow graphic artist Konstantin Kuzginov. The author chose a flower with five multi-colored petals that symbolized the continents. Red represented Europe, yellow - Asia, blue - America, purple - Africa, green - Australia. At the heart of the flower was a globe with the inscription “For peace and friendship.”

In preparation for the festival in Moscow, new hotel complexes "Tourist" (1956) and "Ukraine" (1957) were built and a sports complex was erected in Luzhniki (1956; now the Luzhniki Stadium), where the opening and closing ceremonies of the VI VFMS. On the eve of the festival Central television USSR, a youth edition of "Festival" was created.

Mira Avenue appeared in Moscow (combining 1st Meshchanskaya, B. Alekseevskaya, B. Rostokinskaya streets, Troitskoe Highway and part of Yaroslavskoe Highway). Delegations followed it on the opening day of the festival. Participants in the forum founded the Friendship Park in the north-west of the capital, and the street starting from the park was named “Festivalnaya” in 1964.

During the festival, international and national concerts were held, circus performances, competitions, exhibitions, meetings and seminars, theatrical performances and film screenings (in the cinemas "Udarnik", "Coliseum", "Forum", "Khudozhestvenny"), chess matches, sports competitions various types sports, etc. was open free access balls were organized in the Moscow Kremlin, in the Chamber of Facets. In the Park named after Gorky hosted an exhibition of abstract artists with the participation of the American Jackson Pollock.

At the festival, Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy’s song based on the poems of Mikhail Matusovsky “Moscow Evenings” was performed for the first time. One of the competitions later became the TV show “Evening of Fun Questions” (now KVN). Among the festival laureates were clown Oleg Popov, singers Edita Piekha, Sofia Rotaru, Nani Bregvadze, ballet soloist Maris Liepa and others.

VI VFMS in Moscow became one of the landmark events of the Thaw era, the first international event in the USSR, in which thousands of foreign guests took part. At the festival they had the opportunity to informally communicate with citizens Soviet Union. The festival marked the beginning of the widespread dissemination of “Western” fashion and increased interest in foreign mass culture.

XII VFMS

In 1985, Moscow hosted the youth forum for the second time. The XII World Festival of Youth and Students was held from July 27 to August 3. 26 thousand people from 157 countries took part in it.

The emblem of the XII VFMS was a daisy created back in 1957 with five multi-colored petals symbolizing the continents. However, in the core of the flower against the background of the globe, instead of the inscription “For peace and friendship,” there was placed graphic image dove - a symbol of peace. The author of the updated emblem was the artist Rafael Masautov. The mascot of the festival was “Katyusha” - a Russian beauty in a sundress and kokoshnik.

According to tradition, the festival began with a solemn procession of its participants. On July 27, with the Peace March, members of the delegations marched along major highways of the capital, in particular along Komsomolsky Avenue. The opening and closing of the event took place at the Central Stadium. V.I. Lenin (now - Luzhniki). The festival torch was lit by the legendary military pilot Ivan Kozhedub from Eternal Flame Tomb of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin walls. Then he was taken to the stadium by torchbearers - Lenin Komsomol Prize laureate, assembly mechanic Pavel Ratnikov and graduate student, daughter of the planet's first cosmonaut Galina Gagarina. After the lighting of the festival bowl, the “Hymn of the Democratic Youth of the World” was played.

The festival lasted eight days. Meetings and seminars, discussions and round tables, rallies, various exhibitions and competitions, concerts artistic groups delegations and professional artists, mass celebrations. Sports competitions were organized, including races for the “festival mile” (1985 m) and friendly matches in various sports (hockey, basketball, volleyball). The Peace Run was opened by the Chairman of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch.

The Museum of Cosmonautics hosted a teleconference with the cosmonauts of the Soyuz T-13 spacecraft, Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Viktor Savinykh, who were in orbit. Honored Master of Sports of the USSR Anatoly Karpov and chess players from other countries (Hungary, Colombia, Portugal and Czechoslovakia) gave a session of simultaneous play on 1 thousand boards. Famous artists Herluf Bidstrup (Denmark) and Tair Salakhov (USSR) conducted master classes. More than 200 creative venues operated in the capital every day.

In front of the guests with concert programs spoke American singer Dean Reed, German rock singer Udo Lindenberg, the groups "Time Machine" and "Integral", Valery Leontyev, Mikhail Muromov, Larisa Dolina, Ekaterina Semenova and others. Famous figure skaters Marina Cherkasova took part in the "Ice Ball" at the Olimpiysky sports complex , Igor Bobrin, Yuri Ovchinnikov and others. The song of the author-performer from Tolyatti Yuri Livshits “Waltz of Silence” became the final melody of the festival.

After the completion of the main festival program, on August 3-16, 1985, an international children's party"Fireworks, peace! Fireworks, festival!"

About XII VFMS in 1985 were withdrawn documentaries: "12th World. Pages of the festival diary", "Round dance of peace and friendship", "Hello, 12th World". Released on the eve of the festival stamps with festival symbols, a commemorative coin of 1 ruble, held special edition state lottery. More than 7 thousand types of souvenir products were made with the symbols of the festival, among which was the “Katyusha” doll, which became popular. About 500 were installed on the streets of Moscow picturesque panels, 450 text slogans and appeals were posted.