Festival May: tons of mussels and street culture

Two big festivals of the Pacific Russia Food team will please guests and residents of Vladivostok in the first half of May.

From May 1 to 15, the 7th Mussel Festival will be held in gastronomic institutions of the city. On May 11 and 12, the first international festival of street culture "MAISKIE" will be held at the site of the Public and Cultural Center "Ocean". The festival “MAISKIE” grew from “Midiya Summit” and transformed from a gastronomic to a large cross-cultural event that will unite street art artists, enthusiasts of local food, representatives of various urban subcultures from dancing and street sports to fashion against the background of music sounding for 2 days from an open stage performed by 13 groups from different regions of Russia from Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok and China. We have always been interested in creating communities, bringing people together, exploring the idea of the Far East and generating events that make life in the city more meaningful and pleasant, says Tatiana Zarechneva, the ideological inspirer of the project and head of the public movement Pacific Russia Food. - "Maiskey" is a phenomenon of a completely different order than just a gastronomic festival, from which it all began. In 2019, we made a mussel food court, then added music, then began to experiment with modern art as an urban phenomenon, and now the urban communities themselves come to us and offer ideas on what can be done at the festival site. That is, “MAISKIE” in the end now is about what the city lives.

The festival platform will become a space for uniting musicians from different cities of Russia and China and developing the musical culture of the Far East. 13 groups from Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk, Ulan-Ude, Novosibirsk, Moscow, Vladivostok, Beijing and Hong Kong, working in the genres of modern music from blues and rock to rap. Such a “territorial diversity” of musical groups, each of which will present exclusively author’s material, will be a discovery for Vladivostok. Headliners of the musical part of the festival will be Maxim Svoboda and the group “Marlins” and electronic rock bands DeerMX from Hong Kong and KyoYoko from Beijing. 

Also Vladivostok is very much waiting for the Buryat group “Rainy Season”, which won the hearts of the audience in previous years. Producers of major music festivals from Russia and China will arrive at the festival. Street art program of the festival will be held in several stages. Artists from different regions of the Far East during 2 art jams will create five art objects before the festival on the territory around the Ocean, and the sixth unusual mobile object, which the organizers are keeping secret, will be created directly on the days of the event, and guests of the festival will be able to take part in its creation. Competitions will be held in 6 areas: All styles kids (under 14 years), Dance Jam, All styles, Hip-Hop, Breakdance and Lady's style. Designers from Vladivostok will help to understand modern fashion and create a unique street image of used things, which will give a second life at a charity swap. Traditionally, the festival will host master classes of Far Eastern cuisine, and local food projects will go to the food court with mussels, scallops, Far Eastern and Asian street food. Recall that last year on the summer terrace "Ocean" guests for 3 days ate more than 1 tons of mussels. The organizer of the international festival of street culture “MAISKIE” is the Pacific Tourist Union. The project is implemented with the support of the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives. Also partners of the festival were the Administration of the city of Vladivostok, the Public and Cultural Center “Ocean”, the gastro-bar space Foodliner and the creative digital agency “Exactly!”. As part of the 7th Mussel Festival from May 1 to 15, restaurants, pubs, cafes and street food outlets will traditionally offer a portion of mussels in shells: 300 grams for a fixed price of 500 rubles. For many years, this gastronomic holiday has become a cult gastronomic event of the Far East, and mussels have turned from a “weed” into a cult delicacy. The opening of the Mussel Festival will be held on May 1 in the new gastro-event space "AGAR-AGAR" (Vladivostok, Stanyukovich St. 46, 1 floor). 

Here on the shore of Fedorov Bay, chefs and gastroenthusiasts will prepare mussels in different sauces on huge pans, teachers of the School of Far Eastern cuisine will conduct master classes on the preparation of mussels and other Far Eastern delicacies. The Mussel Festival supports the development of Far Eastern mariculture, forms a community of cooks and fans of Far Eastern cuisine, is a point of attraction for tourists. It promotes the ideas, spirit and taste of the Far East beyond its borders. The Mussel Festival is organized by the School of Far Eastern Cuisine as part of the public project for the development of Far Eastern cuisine Pacific Russia Food.

The material and banner were prepared and provided by the Pacific Russia Food project.