This year, it was my fate to venture to the Peninsula of Freedom solo. Pasha decided to tie the knot and, as is often the case, didn’t read the fine print. So, when the time came to buy tickets, he faltered and, with a trembling voice, said he wouldn’t be going. Just like in those endless jokes about happily married men: “We don’t like football!” Yeah, right.
There was definitely a touch of cosmic irony to the whole situation. It was Pasha—the very one who’d first lured me into this madness a year ago, eyes blazing as he raved about Kubana—who now couldn’t go himself, choosing instead to build a brand-new unit of society. Well, compadre… hasta luego! I’m off.
Kubana 2013 marked the festival’s fifth anniversary, and the organizers went all out with a full seven days of non-stop mayhem. Artists were summoned from practically every corner of the planet—not to mention the bonus activities scattered across the festival grounds.
The first surprise, and not exactly a pleasant one, was that the organizers had changed the location. Sure, it was more spacious, but somehow, we ended up smack in the middle of a cornfield. If you wanted to take a dip in the sea, you had to hike for several minutes through a local variety of black soil, cursing and tripping over the stumps left from the last harvest. Confused festivalgoers wrestled them out of the ground to pitch their tents, all while tossing out sarcastic remarks about “Children of the Corn.”
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| The arrow on the sign shows direction to "the best f*cking stuff" |
As for me, I couldn’t be bothered to lug a tent on my back, so I ended up staying in the nearest village to the festival grounds. Sure, those sacred 10,000 steps for daily health were covered just by walking to and from Kubana, but at least I didn’t resemble a clay golem baked in the sun—head to toe caked in dust and dried-up soil—like some of the folks who stayed in the tent city.
At the time, I had no idea that this decision would leave me vulnerable to a treacherous ambush at my weakest moment… but more on that later.
Anyway—kicking off the seven-day frenzy was Emir Kusturica’s punk opera Time of the Gypsies. I wouldn’t say it blew my mind, but I did appreciate the unconventional vibe.
And while we’re on the topic of curious innovations, I’ve got to mention the performance by the ReCirquel contemporary circus troupe, led by Hungarian dancer and choreographer Bence Vági. They performed under the spotlights late at night—and it was, honestly, a full-on ode to the human body and everything it can do with enough discipline and training. No animals. Just humans. And a ton of tricks that, if attempted without proper prep, would probably snap your neck in about two seconds flat.
The musical backdrop deserves its own spotlight (pardon the accidental pun). It was the kind of soundtrack that would’ve done any stage production or musical proud. To this day, I’ve still got James Blake’s Limit to Your Love on my playlist. The track is syrupy, syncopated in places, and has touches of a cappella woven in. While it played, an athlete onstage performed something between a dance and an acrobatic act. At times it felt like he didn’t have any bones at all—his joints moved like they had 360-degree freedom. His movements were so fluid… almost unearthly.
When his performance ended, the crowd exploded—screams, whistles, thunderous applause—all a much-needed release of pent-up emotion. Up until that point, there had been a deathly hush over the crowd, the kind that only happens when hundreds of people are spellbound, locked in collective awe, watching something… transcendental.
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| Drum solo from Enter Shikari. Kubana-style |
Poor Sandra Nasić from Guano Apes could barely sing due to the monstrous clouds of dust kicked up during her set. Not even a makeshift dust mask fashioned from a bandana could help. Her voice already has that signature rasp, but thanks to the dust, she started rasping in a way that was… well, let’s just say, not exactly musical.
Now, credit where it’s due—the festival organizers and local authorities moved with astonishing speed. Within just a few hours, they had trucked in several dozen KamAZ loads of sand. Just like that, we were no longer losing our minds in the middle of a cornfield but were transported—at least spiritually—back to the beachfront near Vesyolovka.
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| That dust cloud could be seen from the outer space. Probably |
That day, I missed almost the entire Noize MC set, because I was stuck in a monstrous line for the Skillet autograph session. My girlfriend at the time was a die-hard fan. I’d listened to a few of their albums, and some tracks still live on in my playlist. I had a mission that day—to get the whole band to sign a small gift pillow decorated with the Kubana anniversary skull design. The plan was to gift it to my girlfriend for her birthday.
Moments like that make me really glad I never had issues with English. Most folks in line just stared at the band members with googly eyes, muttering “Photo, pleez!”—because that’s as far as their language skills would take them. Me? I got to compliment drummer Jen Ledger on the raw power she brought to nearly every track. She rewarded me with a beaming smile and a warm “thank you,” straight from that fiery redhead soul of hers.
I also congratulated frontman John Cooper on the success of their recently released album Rise and thanked the whole band through him for the stellar sound. He looked genuinely pleased to have a conversation that didn’t start and end with “Hi, how are you?”
The result of our chat? A birthday pillow with a personalized message—and absolutely zero photos of me with Skillet. Sometimes, I swear, I’m a hopeless idiot.
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| With fellow revelers |
One of the absolute standout memories from this year’s Kubana — and I know this’ll sound strange — was none other than... Yuri Antonov! But not just the maestro himself — it was the whole absurd glory of the moment. Uncle Yura, despite being very much on the senior side of life, effortlessly lit up a crowd hungry for punk rock and pure mayhem. I’m dead certain I’ll never forget that image, forever etched into my brainstem like a cassette track burned into chrome tape: Antonov grinning like a rogue, striking the first chords of “Na vysokom beregu” (“On the High Bank”). A tune that already slapped back in the ’80s falls onto fertile soil, and the crowd begins to sway and hum like it’s been hypnotized.
Right next to me: punks with half-meter green mohawks and patched-up denim vests smirking softly, mouthing the lyrics under their breath. Not far off, some metalheads — spiked out from scalp to sole — are bobbing their heads like they’re waiting for something. Dozens of cheerfully buzzed music lovers, dressed in nothing but their swim trunks, are belting out the words with every ounce of lung power.
And then… the chorus hits.
Yuri pauses for two, maybe three seconds — and then BAM. A musical detonation. A wall of sound explodes from the stage and the throats of thousands:
“What a springtime this has been, what days have come to pa-A-A-A-aass!!!”
The food court trembles. The bleachers quake. The entire damn beach feels like it's bouncing.
Like they got some secret signal, the eyes around me go glassy. Then, with a roar that would've made the samurai at Sekigahara proud, the crowd tears open into a monstrous mosh pit and goes full berserk.
If you don’t know what glorious madness hides behind that word — moshpit — do yourself a favor: google it. Right now. You’ve missed something monumental.
But that was just the first wave of this body tsunami.
Here come the punks and metalheads — mohawks, boots (Grinders! on beach sand, mind you), possessed by some infernal ecstasy — diving into the heart of the pit, screaming the next line:
“Why were you so angry, love? Why did we ever pa-A-A-A-aart?!”
Never before or since Kubana have I seen two utterly clashing worlds unfold side by side in such perfect sync. Half concussed, I clawed my way out of that infernal whirlpool and shuffled off to find a drink, turning over every shade of meaning in the phrase:
“People’s Artist.”
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| The situation when you are the living manifestation of the phrase "old but gold" |
The Turbo Stage served up one hell of an eclectic buffet of artists. There was something for everyone: Want the Misfits? Easy. Craving some Mexican electronic madness? Hocico was right there, ready to short-circuit your brain. Prefer a custom DJ set by the drummer from The Ramones? Or maybe you’d rather nod your head to some heavy, greasy rap? No problem—Marky Ramone and the brothers from Wu-Tang Clan had your back on both fronts.
But of all the acts that tore it up on that stage, the one that seared itself deepest into my memory was the crew from Israel—Infected Mushroom. They turned one of those nights into a full-blown technicolor fever dream, serving up a show that was part rave, part hallucination, and part interdimensional ritual.
They performed inside two massive orbs, half-embedded into this colossal stage backdrop that looked like it was built to summon space gods. Onto these giant spheres, a perfectly synced video sequence was projected, matching the vibe of each track. And every now and then, the 3D effects kicked in so hard, you’d start seriously questioning whether your mind was still intact. The spheres seemed to breathe, melt into each other, and dissolve into the night—like the stage itself had become a living, pulsing organism.
I’ll be real with you—I did not envy anyone who’d decided to pop something illegal before their set. Even stone-cold sober, the whole visual madness on the screen made your brain curl up in a fetal position and whimper in a corner. I don’t know exactly what an acid trip feels like, but I’m pretty sure it’s something disturbingly close to this.
As promised, let me tell you about the treacherous ambush I suffered. But first, a little setup. I’d rented a room in a house at a reasonable distance from the festival grounds—far enough that I could actually get some sleep without being blasted awake by thunderous bass and the roars of party animals who clearly believed that both daylight and a good chunk of the night were insufficient for the proper amount of revelry.
Each day, I'd wake up closer to noon, shuffle over to the bathroom, freshen up, and set off to meet the day’s new sonic and not-so-sonic adventures. On that fateful day, I was perched atop the porcelain throne, quietly pondering the application of dominant seventh chords in nu-metal choruses (as one does), when something caught my eye.
There was movement on the floor. At first, I thought it was nothing, but then I looked again. Charging toward me at full speed was the manifestation of my worst nightmares—about five centimeters long (though fear inflated it to palm-sized in my mind), seemingly made entirely of twitching antennae and an army of striped legs.
And it was using some kind of anti-torpedo maneuver—zigzagging in an S-curve, evading imaginary counterattacks, and yet steadily closing the distance. My evolutionary fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, ran a quick simulation, and promptly informed me that “flight” was not an option. I was in a narrow-tiled space with three walls behind me and, on the fourth side, a demon with way too many legs hell-bent on chomping off my manhood.
So, I did what any trapped samurai of the toilet would do: I prepared to die a noble death in battle, much like a remnant Japanese expeditionary force in the dying days of the Imjin War. Calculating the creature’s path, I summoned all the strength and grace that can be mustered by a man long seated and half-pantsed—and slammed my slipper down like the wrath of Zeus.
But the foam sole betrayed me.
Instead of crushing the beast, it merely squished it a little, pinning it temporarily. I’d already begun congratulating myself on a clean kill when, to my horror, I lifted my foot—and it peeled itself off the floor like some arthropodic version of the Undying, a many-legged Agasfer, Prometheus, or Sisyphus, surging back toward me with redoubled fury.
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| I wouldn't mind some divine intervention at that moment |
I snapped.
Letting out a scream that surely warmed me up for the festival better than any vocal exercise, I launched upward like a firework, and came crashing down with my full weight upon my many-legged Nemesis. There was a crunch. Sweet, sweet victory. Shaking, I stumbled out of the bathroom like a battle-scarred veteran. Had I met anyone’s gaze in that moment, I’m sure I’d have had the dreaded "two-thousand-yard stare."
And here’s the kicker: turns out I had just annihilated an utterly harmless house centipede. These little guys can run up to a lightning-quick 40 cm per second. They may look like Lovecraftian nightmares, but they’re actually champions of pest control—eating aphids, bedbugs, cockroaches, and flies with gusto. They do have venom, but it's harmless to humans. Even if you somehow piss one off enough to provoke a bite, its dainty little chelicerae won’t even pierce your skin.
Once again, I was left baffled by nature’s logic—why design such utterly inoffensive creatures to look like Satan’s sidekicks? For species survival? Psychological warfare?
Just look at the poor hickory horned devil caterpillar, a.k.a. the Regal Moth larva—honestly, that name sounds more fitting for a disgraced aristocrat. It looks like it crawled out of a portal to make a deal for your soul, but it’s completely harmless.
Alright, enough about nature’s metal album cover rejects. Put away your bug sprays and fly swatters—let’s get back to the music.
The Prodigy’s team took nearly an hour to prep the stage for their set. It honestly felt like they stripped the stage bare and replaced every single piece of gear with their own. We clapped, we chanted, we whistled—none of it mattered. The band had decided they'd take exactly as much time as they needed to get their setup perfect for the show they had planned.
Some of the less stalwart among us gave in to thirst, full bladders, or the call of the sea—and wandered off to get a drink, a pee, or a dip. And with that, they forfeited their precious spots (the closer to the stage, the more sacred, of course!), which immediately sparked some serious competition for real estate. Having already learned my lesson the hard way—and taken my fair share of elbows and knees from the fan-faithful—I opted to avoid the madness right in front of the stage and instead posted up at the barrier next to one of the massive screens. It might have been a bit pixelated, but at least it didn’t threaten my ribs or my life.
And damn, the guys sure know how to make an entrance. After all that exhausting wait, they kicked off straight into "Voodoo People". That was all it took to plunge the entire field of festivalgoers into a kind of collective trance. Thousands of “Kubanoids,” who had been waiting with fevered anticipation, instantly melted into the beat. Then—boom—before we had a chance to catch our breath, "Jetfighter" roared out of the speakers. Around me, people started howling in some kind of primal ecstasy.
I was still in awe, thinking about the cult-like status of the band, when suddenly the sea of bodies around me began to heave and surge. Out of nowhere, a massive security guy appeared in front of me. The reason for his sudden arrival was standing just 3 or 4 meters away, shouting into a mic—Keith Flint had jumped off the stage and was making his way along the barricaded path, handing out high-fives like some kind of electro-punk messiah.
My excitement at being so close to him very quickly morphed into pure panic as I realized—of course I wasn’t the only one who saw him. Thousands of die-hard fans had clocked him too. Before my brain even finished processing that obvious revelation, I felt it: the unstoppable wave of human mass slamming into me and pinning me against the barricade like a bug under glass.
To be fair, the security guys were top-notch. Within seconds, they formed a human chain along the barrier, one hand gripping it, the other pushing back the surging crowd, with brows furrowed in full-on "Don’t mess with me" mode. One particularly jacked guy pressed his palm into my chest and barked at me in broken Russian to calm down—which was ironic, considering I was the poor schmuck being crushed between the fence and five lunatics behind me trying to throw themselves at Keith.
To put it metaphorically, I had become the tragic filling in a very aggressive sandwich. One slice was screaming: “KEEEEITH! AUTOGRAPH PLEASE! AUTOGRAAAAPH!!!” The other was booming: “STOP! CALM!!!” And the poor smushed meat in the middle could only wheeze: “Lemme breathe, you godless heathens…”
What saved me was the fact that Keith had finished giving the crowd their moment in that particular spot and kept moving down the path, dragging his rabid fan base with him. I was finally released from my fleshy prison, lungs still intact, but pride somewhere in the dirt.
Pretty beat up and freshly developing an acute case of Prodigy-induced PTSD, I went off in search of some liquid anesthetic. On that stifling August evening, I had no idea that I should’ve leaned in deeper into the surrounding madness and simply felt grateful for such a unique experience.
Less than six years later, Keith Flint would be found hanged in his home in England. He would take his own life after a long battle with depression, triggered by the collapse of his marriage. If ever there was a moment to reflect on "Carpe diem" and "Memento mori" wrapped into one… that, was it.
As I wandered back and forth between the festival grounds and the nearby village, one couldn’t help but notice a certain undeterred demographic. These folks hadn’t managed to scrape together enough cash for a festival ticket, but thanks to the sheer volume levels, they could still enjoy a decent number of performances from just outside the perimeter fence.
Most of them behaved themselves and didn’t draw too much attention from the ever-watchful police. Or if they did, it was usually when they decided to push their luck and try climbing over the barriers for the thrill of it. They’d inevitably get caught, and with a philosophical shrug and a muttered “Welp, didn’t work,” they’d let themselves be led away—never escalating things or causing real trouble.
Among the hard-core punks that clustered out there, their worldly possessions generally amounted to a single mug. Into this, they would ask others to drop or pour anything they could spare.
And considering that somewhere around 300,000 people attended this Kubana overall—well, let’s just say those guys didn’t stay hungry or sober for very long.
The grand finale of the 5th anniversary Kubana wasn’t something you could entrust to just anyone. And so, after a week of non-stop dancing, singing, and new connections, the time had come for the closing performance. In 2012, it had been The Offspring. This time, the torch had been passed to System of a Down.
That same August, they were scheduled to play festivals in Sweden and Austria—but first, they were set to delight fans in Russia.
Still sore and semi-flattened from the Prodigy’s sonic assault, I hadn’t quite recovered yet, so I made the executive decision not to squeeze up to the front. Well… let’s say the decision was sort of made for me by the couple thousand countrymen who had started securing their spots near the barricades several hours before the show even began.
Watching people pack in tighter than sardines, I had zero desire to dive into that hellish moshpit once SOAD's hits started rolling in. And roll in they did: “Chop Suey!” and “Toxicity” lit up the night. Then, when the band started throwing guitar picks and drumsticks into the crowd... it turned into a full-on frenzy.
Serj and the gang played for about an hour and a half—longer than some artists' solo tours. After the final bows, a now-traditional fireworks display lit up the sky. Once it ended, both the official festival anthem and the unofficial one (far more beloved by fans)—a track called “Kubana” by the Russian rockers Elysium—started playing on loop. It was the organizers’ gentle nudge: “The show’s over. Time to go home.”
But none of us wanted to believe it.
Even after the farewell fireworks faded, I just sat there on the carefully imported sand by the stage, trying to soak in every last drop of that unique atmosphere Kubana always had. Judging by the number of people sitting quietly around me, I wasn’t the only one trying to carry away as many feelings and memories as possible. Most of us sat in silence, lost in ourselves. Now and then, you’d hear a hushed conversation or the occasional sigh—or even a quiet sob of regret.
Over this wild week, I’d found myself at dozens of impromptu gatherings and boozy bonding sessions. Some folks grumbled that a full festival pass cost around 8,000 rubles— “It’s supposed to be a youth festival, for crying out loud! These prices bite harder than a venus flytrap.”
I don’t know. Personally, I think Kubana earned every ruble spent. Yeah, it was a bummer that Scooter couldn’t make it because of the vocalist’s illness, and Bloodhound Gang dropped out due to the scandal in Odessa. Maybe perfection really is out of reach.
But even with those hiccups, the emotions and memories forged that week stayed with me forever. The fact that I’m sitting here, writing all this down twelve years later—that says it all, doesn’t it?
You know, I was chatting with a Chinese neural network the other day—DeepSeek, I think it was—and gave it a rough rundown of just how incredible both of the Kubanas I went to were. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was confessing to this artificial intelligence that I was in the middle of a full-blown nostalgia attack.
To which my digital comrade—spiritual descendant of Confucius, Jackie Chan, and Sun Tzu—wisely replied:
“Nostalgia is no vice. If you feel it, it means you truly lived.”
Well said.
I couldn’t agree more.
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| The description for this would-be picture can be like: "7th of August, 2013. Artem doesn't want to leave" |
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