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The 10th anniversary of “Father Frost against Putin” festival is approaching, so it is time for a throwback to what happened last January. Then the festival was held for the first time in three years. Initially the border was closed by Covid, then by the war in Ukraine, but in the end it was decided to continue organizing the festival in Helsinki, just under new conditions. Since it was difficult to get to the festival from Russia, it was decided to make real-time streams of all festival performances, and also a stream of the translations, as well as recordings of all performances and translations.

However, it was a fairly ambitious plan with parallel events taking place, and some recordings suffered from technical problems. In particular, the Russian-language recording of the first event of the festival on January 6, an introduction to the discussion on the topic “Anti-war movement - what next?” from Sasha Starost, artist, activist and curator of the psycho-direction of FAS (Feminist Anti-War Resistance), could not be edited in a sufficiently acceptable state. We only publish a recording of the translation in English, together with the second introduction to the discussion, from an anonymous member of the Antijob collective  (Youtube, Spotify). The second introduction was also preserved in Russian.  

A recording of the second festival event, on the topic “Helping anti-war prisoners - what should be done now? ", from Sasha Starost, also managed to be edited only in English (YouTube, Spotify). Unfortunately, the “Black February” project, which covered and documented “anti-war” criminal cases, ceased in the spring of 2023 due to lack of resources. .  

Simultaneously with these discussions, a Video Workshop was held to prepare short activist videos, with practical advice, a short introduction to simple programs and a practical approach to preparing your own videos. The workshop was hosted by video blogger Dimitri Ollikainen from Tampere. The workshop was recorded only in Finnish, the recording can be found here. 

On Saturday, January 7th, 2023, there was a plan to hold a discussion with an introduction from Alexander Belik, coordinator of the Conscious Objector Movement and head of the advocacy program of the Sfera Foundation, on the topic “Resistance in emigration. How can we act together against the authorities in Russia?”, but unfortunately he fell ill on the way to Helsinki, and the discussion was cancelled. Yet, fortunately a similar discussion is planned at the festivals this year, on Sunday 14th January at 12:00 in Ulrika (Leppäsuonkatu 11). The entire program of the 10th anniversary of the festival on January 12-14th, 2024 is here.

In the end, the 2023 festival ended with a successful rave party, in which the activists who are organizing the festival this year first met each other. See you soon!