Vistula Gondoliers
This year’s Shanties festival takes us By the Vistula to the Oceans. Between 23 and 26 February, Kraków shows it’s not as far from the open waters as you might think!
This year marks the 550th anniversary of free rafting on the Vistula – queen of Poland’s rivers, central to our country’s history. To commemorate the occasion, the Sejm has hailed 2017 as the Year of the Vistula. The 36th International Sea Song Festival Shanties 2017 is a perfect part of the celebrations.
Music celebrating wind, water and adventure is dazzling in its diversity: from full-bloodied shanties from ocean-going sailing ships to more chilled out climates of seafarers singing and playing guitar by a campfire by a lake. This year’s festival is a perfect illustration of this variation.
Anyone can sail! The Watery Critical Mass event, held on the Vistula by the foot of Wawel Hill for the last five years, is perfect proof of this. Still, the fact remains that the majority of Poles start their adventure with sailing in Mazury. We’ll be taken to the Land of Thousands of Lakes with the concert Mazurian Columbuses. This magical lake district is even closer to the open waters! The concert of ballads Ocean of Dreams is perfect for those of us for whom hard labour onboard a clipper isn’t exactly a peak ambition, and who don’t dream of being lashed with a bosun’s whip. Concerts Thousands of Miles and Roaring Seas and Oceans take us on adventures under huge sails. Seasoned shanty maniacs can’t miss the concert of classic shanties Under Zawisza’s Sails and an evening of rum-filled stories Rolling Horizon. Mind you don’t fall overboard!
‘Tis Our Sailing Time… is the motto of the finale concert of this year’s Shanties festival. The event commemorates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the pioneer of sailing in Poland, General Mariusz Zaruski.
The 15 concerts on four stages (Kijów.Centrum, Żaczek, Radio Kraków, Stary Port) host almost 200 performers from Poland, Norway and the UK. Events are accompanied by exhibitions, a sailing fair and plenty more attractions, such as a joint singing of The Leaving of Liverpool at the Rynek Główny. (Artur Jackowski, "Karnet" monthly)
