Penza, 28 May 2018. PenzaNews. The first interregional historical and cultural festival DanshinoFest was in a big way held on Trinity Sunday in Danshino village, Belinsky area, the Penza region, which is a place of compact residence of the Mordva.

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The deputy chairman of the Penza region government Oleg Yagov was among the guests of honor of the event. He thanked the organizers and suggested that next year the event would be given the status of the All-Russian one.

In turn, Nikolai Druzhinin, the head of the administration of the Belinsky area, noted that a large number of guests had come to DanshinoFest.

“We hope that the festival will become a good tradition,” he added.

Nikolai Piksin, a native of the village, managing partner of the Moscow law firm Piksin and Partners, who is one of the initiators of the event, also addressed the public.

“According to archive materials, Danshino appeared in the 17th century and then became the center of the Mordovian settlements. […] Today, Danshino is becoming a cultural center not only at the area level,” he stressed.

Representatives of different cultures took part in the concert program of the festival, with Mordovia occupying the central place. In addition to original creative groups from the Penza region, the audience watched the ensembles Voronezh girls, Kabardinka and artists from Mordovia.

The guests with great interest watched a demonstration sword duel performed by the professional re-enactors of the stage fencing studio Brand, as well as the fist fight, which was demonstrated by the members of Soyuz Zasechnogo Boya (Union of Zasechny Battle) of the Penza Region.

Everyone could also purchase souvenirs on the Craftsmen’s Street, where the sale of handicrafts was organized, or admire the photo exhibition Crossroads of Cultures.

A very popular occupation during the fest was the bow-crossbow shooting range.

Guests of the festival were invited to try traditional dishes of Mordovian, European and Russian cuisine, prepared both by local craftsmen and representatives of catering enterprises: Devonshire Pub and Melnitsa bakery.

According to Alexander Ostashkov, Director of the ANO Center for Social and Management Projects Initiative, Associate professor of the Department of Public Administration and Sociology of the Penza State University, who was one of the organizers of the event, it is planned to develop the geography of the festival participants in the future.

“If we look strategically, it seems to me that ideally we need to enter the calendar of Finno-Ugric holidays and festivals. There are a lot of them but it is better not to compete, but to build a unified policy at the interregional level. And within the region, we also need to unite more different peoples and cultures,” he said.

Alexander Ostashkov added that the idea of cooperation and brotherhood was one of the defining for the organizers. According to him, it is planned to further strengthen the friendship of peoples.