Mingling at the main festival site in Sochi. (c): Kristiina Silvan. All rights reserved.Calling on the world’s youth to unite “for peace, solidarity and social justice” and to “struggle against imperialism” sounds slightly outdated in Russia today. But those were the phrases that rang out on 13-22 November, when the country hosted the 19th World Youth Festival. The event brought 20,000 young people from across the world to Sochi’s now empty Olympic Park to participate in a bizarre re-enactment of a Cold War era mega-event.
The result? A celebration of youth, peace and international friendship — overshadowed by the realpolitik and geopolitics of today’s Russia.
Uniting the youth, 60 years on
An obvious point of departure for the 2017 festival was the legendary Moscow Youth Festival of 1957. In Soviet and Russian historiography, the festival was an unforgettable event in the lives of a whole generation of Soviet youth.
