Sound and vision?

OK, experimenting with video. In ALL cases trust that the video is really bad, but the sound captures part of the experience. Yesterday was the 450th anniversary of the union of Udmurtia and Russia. There was a huge cast of thousands doing many cool performances. It was only thanks to the generosity of my new colleagues that I was able to get a ticket to go, and it was a such a wonderful experience. I went with Farida, who also had to do a little bit of work and translate once in awhile, and also educated me on the different ethnic groups in the region...

As a warm-up, though, let's start off with a bit of the Udmurt State University theme song. (BTW, no real video, just my shoes, wanted to catch the song and not intimidate the singer)

Everybody sing!
Udmurte Universitet, Universitet, Udmurte....Udmurte Uni---verrr--si-tet (repeat)...



The big celebration for the 450th anniversary was amazing. Here are a couple of excerpts--again, horrible video, mostly important for sound, although some motion is discernable! :

This is the music and dance of the Udmurt people, and the language being spoken is Udmurt, which is more like a kind of Finnish...





It is really too bad that I can only put on a little of the total performance, but here's some of the kids performance, which was really fun:





There were many wonderful presentations of dance and music for the many ethnic groups which comprise Russia which just can't be put on here, unfortunately. But the show was also great for the unexpected. You're sitting, watching cool dance moves, and then---Hey, everybody, run! Here come the ballerinas!




To conclude, a bit of the big finish! REALLY bad video, but you can see the empty bleachers in the patterns of the Russian and Udmurt flags behind all of the performers on the field. They comprised about 1/3 of the total stadium seating, and did an amazing job as all were just community volunteers!






A truly amazing experience, hope you found these little bits fun....MR

P. S. As promised to family (mostly), the goofy bath hat shot....