City clubbers and just about anyone who can’t imagine their life without beach rave parties, should start packing their suitcases right now. The traditional dancing marathon, known for its crazy and amazing techno, trance and house music, KaZantip festival, started last Saturday.
Around for over 16 years, KaZantip evolved from a dance marathon of a “small sect of escapists” partying at an unfinished abandoned nuclear power plant in the Crimean peninsula Kazantip to a commercially successful electro-music festival.
In the very beginning there was nothing more than a bunch of windsurfers partying after a hard day of wave riding. Such parties became extremely popular not just with the surfer crowd but also with the growing number of spectators and visitors. To get to the first ever KaZantip rave in 1992, the wannabe partiers had to hunt out a special map and use its directions to arrive at the site and enjoy the music. It was a sort of paradise of hippy-like vacationers who want to reduce the world to sun, sea, sky and sex. Spontaneously from year to year it grew into the biggest and longest ever trance-techno music festival that takes place for four to six weeks in the summer. Glorifying rave culture with its liberal laws, Kazantip earned not so perfect reputation. Up to now you can hear a lot of talks about “the kind of people gathering at the fest and what they are doing there.” The local administration tried to ban it several times, accusing the organizers of promoting a drug culture. But it turned out, the ravers couldn’t be stopped and more than 100,000 “paradiZers” come to Kazantip every year.
These days KaZantip is an internationally known holiday complex in Crimea, situated in small village of Popovka (30 km from Yevpatoria and 112 km from Simferopol) and symbolically proclaimed independent “Republic Z” dedicated to music, fun and spirit of freedom on the sandy beach of the Black Sea. It has its own constitution, preZident (the head of the festival), mock cabinet positions – ministers of happiness, dance and rave, intellect, visuals and illusions etc. and the most important law to obey is: “Schastie – be happy and have fun!” To be admitted on the territory you need to show a multi-pass, a so-called viZa to KaZantip republic. This visa costs a one-off fee of 120 US and is valid for the entire duration of your stay, be it one week or the whole 36 days. It can be booked online. Daily passes are available at the gate for Hr 100 to Hr 150. The passes give you access to the whole festival complex which includes 11 stages where music of different styles are played, a number of small cafes and bars, various lounge and sports zones, internet-cafe, souvenir kiosks, tattoo and body-art salons etc.
The right of visa-free admission to KaZantip is given only to owners of small yellow suitcases which is the national symbol of the festival. It must look exactly like in the 1970 Soviet children’s movie “The Adventures of the Yellow Suitcase,” in which a doctor made children happy by giving them magic sweets from his yellow suitcase. The philosophy behind this is that happiness can be real only when shared.
This year line-up is super-sized. You will be able to party non-stop with over 300 famous international, Ukrainian and Russian deejays spinning sets 24 hours-a-day, taking short breaks only to grab a quick drink or jump into the sea. The DJ line-up includes: James Zabiela, Steve Lawler, Nic Fancully, Audiofly, Tom Craft, Umek, Robert Babicz, Martin Eyerer, Dirt Crew, Lee Van Dowski, Tigerskin, Patrick Zigon, Tom Clark, Todd Bodine, John Spring, Larrson, Candy, P.toile, Till Von Sein and many others. Headliners of the fest are Israeli psychedelic trance duo Infected Mushroom, which bad-ass grooves, infectious melodies and energetic live shows have triumphed at some of the world’s biggest music festivals like OMIX Festival in Mexico, Miami’s Ultra Festival, Tribe in Sao Paulo top clubs like Brixton Academy in London and Avalon in New York. So if you decide to make the trip, enjoy!
Time to rave at Kazantip!
