“GogolFest may become a brand of cultural Kyiv”

The Forum was supposed to be held under the personal patronage of the head of Kyiv City State Administration Oleksandr Popov. Last year in December Vladyslav Troitsky, organizer of GogolFest, theater director and producer announced the closing up of the creative project due to the lack of funds and support of the local government, but already in January Popov stated: “For the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, the city authorities will become a co-organizer of such festival. Together we will look for sponsors; we will help with organization and will take an active part in the whole process. I am convinced, that such cooperation will become a good tradition. GogolFest may become a brand of cultural Kyiv. It is an already existing idea that will help to strengthen the positive image of Kyiv on the international level, because this project is well known practically all over the world. Not only Kyiv residents and people from other Ukrainian cities, but also many fans of modern art from Europe and the CIS countries have fallen in love with it. It is even sad that we didn’t cooperate before…” And now The Day got the news. Press service of the Head Department of Culture at Kyiv City State Administration reported: “On mutual consent of the organizer of the International Multimedia Festival of Modern Art GogolFest and the Head Department of Culture the decision has been made to postpone the festival until 2013.”

“Of course, it’s not the most pleasant news,” admitted the organizer of the GogolFest. “I understand that the objective reasons forced the Head of Kyiv City State Administration to take this step and to postpone the date of the festival. When there is not enough money you can not begin a forum. By the way, we also had problems with the confirmation of the tenancy at the building of the Exhibition of Economic Achievements and because this issue was dragged on, we took a joint decision to postpone GogolFest until 2013. It is clear, of course, that the program of the forum will also have to be changed and I will only start planning everything when I will have a full confirmation of all the agreements with a signed lease agreement for the whole time of the Festival from the Kyiv Mayor Office. I understand that the elections and Euro-2012 require huge funds and our GogolFest does not fit in this chain of events. I still hope for the future cooperation with the Kyiv City State Administration, but if by October I won’t get any guarantee I will finally state that our wonderful festival ceased to exist.”