“On a Char-à-banc with the Wind” in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia

Char-à-banc is an open carriage people of the 19th century used to travel on in many countries. “Char-à-banc. The Wheel of the Time” – that was the name of the Festival of modern ethnographic music that took place in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, on 19 June, in an outdoor museum. That museum is an outstanding place in its own way. In the middle of the last century beautiful samples of wooden Russian architecture were brought there from all over Nizhny Novogorod Region to be collected baulk by baulk.

Sahaja Yogis were representing Indian folklore at the Festival as well as traditional painting with henna – mehendi. We also gave a workshop on Indian classic dance.

Opinion about the performance of our bhajan-group “Turia” published in the Internet by some viewer: “It is beyond praise. Firstly, Indian music is beautiful. Secondly, they were very-very loud-voiced. Thirdly, the instruments were almost absolutely ethical. Except there was a guitar instead of a sitar. Their repertoire made me glad, too. They were singing ragas, bhajans, kawwalis in Hindi, other dialects, melodies of Muslim outskirts and so on. So, they did not divide multifaceted India into Krishnaites and somebody else but they showed India as one whole. It was wonderful”.

Besides music performances at the Festival, there was a vast program of workshops – everyone could braid Russian doll-amulet, take lessons of playing guimbarde or dance like Irish people. Mehendi workshop started much earlier than it was announced: as usual, there was a queue to the painters and, as usual, sisters asked everybody who wanted to paint their palm if they wanted to meditate a little bit firstly. What made us extremely happy was that even indifferent to henna painting people were coming and asking about yoga and meditation. They all got invitations to Sahaja-Yoga meetings for newcomers.

By the way, we had bought a tent which was covering us from the sun. The tent was decorated with photos of India & mehendi paintings, colored saris. The picture of Shri Mataji in the corner was creating the atmosphere and emanating cool vibrations.

According to the festival coordinators, about 800 people visited the Festival. At least, a quarter of them became guests of our tent that day.

Read this article in Russian