Thursday, July 25, 2019
Russian Jewish Burning Man
Every June, 2,000 Russian-speakers flock to the Catskill Mountains to take part in a weekend event that many liken to Burning Man, but without the dust and with significantly more vodka. Founded 11 years ago by a collective of Russian Jewish immigrants (namely the Feldman family, whose patriarch Jay “Gesha” Feldman died in 2016), JetLAG owes much of its creative spirit to the bounteous imagination of its creative director, Pavel Lion—known widely in the Russian-speaking diaspora by his stage name Psoy Korolenko. With his wizardly beard and wildly expressive eyes, Korolenko has been a fixture in the international Russian literati and Yiddish music scenes for the past decade, typically billed as an “avant-bard & wandering scholar” and carrying an encyclopedic knowledge of cultural references low and high, which often appear in his comical songs along with ample multilingual worldplay. By now, it’s safe to consider him JetLAG’s spirit animal.
And what of the name, JetLAG? Naturally, in true Korolenko fashion, it is an understated pun. Korolenko was in Moscow talking with JetLAG President Vicky Feldman by phone, he recalled: “We were experiencing jet lag,” he said—”time difference. And I was thinking, ‘Why don’t we call it something ‘camp,’ or rather something ‘lag,’” lager being the Russian word for camp. “And we immediately felt that this is sort of a bad pun, because it addresses gulags and others lags, which are bad—but ours is good. It’s a kind of lag that is full of love. And the thing is, JetLAG is a symbolic enough name because it’s about overcoming distances, geographical and spiritual.”
Hence the JetLAG tagline, a motto for its motley of discerning tastes: “You’ll find what you love, you’ll love what you find.”
From its humble beginnings as an offshoot of the East Coast Russian festival circuit, JetLAG has steadily grown into the largest open-air Russian music gathering in the United States. Its unique setup—three distinct and far-flung stages, strategically positioned along a mile-long strip of land skirting the Delaware River—lends itself to an extraordinary array of artistic expression.
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/287604/jetlag-russian-jewish-burning-man-catskills
And what of the name, JetLAG? Naturally, in true Korolenko fashion, it is an understated pun. Korolenko was in Moscow talking with JetLAG President Vicky Feldman by phone, he recalled: “We were experiencing jet lag,” he said—”time difference. And I was thinking, ‘Why don’t we call it something ‘camp,’ or rather something ‘lag,’” lager being the Russian word for camp. “And we immediately felt that this is sort of a bad pun, because it addresses gulags and others lags, which are bad—but ours is good. It’s a kind of lag that is full of love. And the thing is, JetLAG is a symbolic enough name because it’s about overcoming distances, geographical and spiritual.”
Hence the JetLAG tagline, a motto for its motley of discerning tastes: “You’ll find what you love, you’ll love what you find.”
From its humble beginnings as an offshoot of the East Coast Russian festival circuit, JetLAG has steadily grown into the largest open-air Russian music gathering in the United States. Its unique setup—three distinct and far-flung stages, strategically positioned along a mile-long strip of land skirting the Delaware River—lends itself to an extraordinary array of artistic expression.
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/287604/jetlag-russian-jewish-burning-man-catskills
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