An ancient castle in the small town of Rivne Oblast’s Dubno will welcome visitors of the oldest music festival in Ukraine, “Taras Bulba,” this weekend.
The festival was founded right after the country gained its independence in 1991, and has been working hard ever since to promote national culture among Ukrainian youth.
Named after an epic character from Nikolai Gogol’s eponymous novel, “Taras Bulba” specializes in three genres – rock, pop and ethnic music, and has been helping young Ukrainian artists break through to the big stage for nearly two decades.
This year, the guests will traditionally gather on the bank of Ikva River, under the walls of the ancient Dubno Castle, built in 1492. Having held auditions in several Ukrainian cities, this year’s “Taras Bulba” selected 26 contestants.
Among them are: Black Jack and K402 from Lviv; Liberty and Lewis Carroll from Rivne; KARVEN from Kryvy Rih; ZLAM and Organ!k from Kyiv; Chumatsky Shlyakh from Khmelnytstky; Verlibena from Simferopol; and others. Headlining the two-day fest is Oleksandr Pipa, the legendary bass-guitarist and back-vocalist playing with Vopli Vidoplyasova (VV) for many years.
He will present his new project Atractor at the festival. The closest cities to Dubno are Rivne and Lutsk. You can use one bus service running from Kyiv to one of those cities (view bus schedule at bus.com.ua) or use “Pantera” marshrutka company (8-3656-4-9567; 38067-100-14-54) that runs between Kyiv and Dubno (5-6 hours).
Dubno, July 16-18. For more information visit www.tarasbulba-fest.kiev.ua
