Musicians of the Smena group from the city of Staraya Russa, Novgorod Region, reported that at the Rokot over Ilmen rock festival, organized with the support of the Novgorod Summer Governor's project, their performance was interrupted due to a song with the words «In my country dreams, no one wants war.”
Representatives of the group also said that “before the start of the performance, they signed an agreement that they would not promote LGBT people, extremism, drugs and other nasty things from the stage.”
“We honestly followed this agreement, because in principle we never promote anything. But right during our performance, a representative of the co-organizer came up and said that our performance was over <…>. We did not stand up in a pose and make a scandal. Behind the scenes, I asked: what exactly is the matter? To which he received the answer: the matter is in the text of the song «Country of Dreams», — the group's page on VKontakte says.
The festival was held in the village of Staroye Rakomo near Veliky Novgorod on June 23 and 24. One of the organizers of the event, Alexander Ryzhkov, confirmed to RBC that the performance of Smena was interrupted.
«The line «In the land of dreams, no one wants war» a little taken out of context, and their text was really provocative. The guys, to be honest, were not quite right. I believe that the administration did absolutely the right thing, ”Ryzhkov told the agency.
The song also contains the lines “In the country of my dreams, passersby are not beaten with batons by cops” and “In the country of my dreams, the regime will not kill you just like that.”
According to him, in the agreement that the musicians signed before the concert, there was a clause “on the prohibition of discrediting the Russian Armed Forces”, as a result, after hearing the song, the organizers decided that because of it the group could fall under the article of the same name.
The press service of the governor of the Novgorod region told RBC that the festival «did not involve politics.» “Colleagues were indeed asked not to mention the word “war” in song. Unfortunately, they did not heed the requests. Therefore, the organizers decided to ask them not to continue the performance any longer,” said Nikolai Shestakov, head of the press service of the Novgorod governor. In his opinion, the musicians «behaved with dignity, did not begin to sort things out and spoil the holiday for people.»