Moscow Gets Samba Fever

Last weekend, on June 9, the next Moscow Samba Festival was held in Izmailovsky Park. This annual event has been gathering everyone who loves Brazilian dance culture, groovy rhythms and colorful costumes under its banners for 10 years in a row. The Moscow Samba Festival is such a small copy of the real Brazilian carnival, even the organization and structure of the participants are similar. The main choreographer of the march this year was Pablo Guerreiro, a professional Brazilian dance teacher. And also, traditionally, the participants were divided into drummers (Bateria), dancers (Passistas) and dancers (Malandros) and the carnival conductor (Mestre).  At the beginning of the column there were also three main participants – the Carnival Queen (Marcelle Bretas), the Carnival Princess (Anastasia Tsydenzhapova) and the Carnival Muse (Juliana Titaeva), who were chosen by the organizers the day before the main procession. Stilt walkers traditionally walked at the end of the column. This year, the theme of the festival was the sea, which is so loved by the residents of Moscow, but which is so far away from them and therefore most of the costumes of the participants were somehow connected with the marine theme.