Shipot is the name of a waterfall in the Carpathian Mountains near the village of Pilipets, Mezhigorsky District in Transcarpathia. For more than two decades, hundreds of representatives of informal movements and cultures have been coming here every summer. Hippies, punks, metalheads, rockers, Tolkienists, reconstructionists — it is impossible to list them all.
The festival, in which youth movements, subcultures and currents are intertwined, reminds of the famous Woodstock. Except that the music program here is exclusively amateur. Mini-concerts in the open air, sessions are held here round the clock from the first day of the festival to the last. However, it is difficult to determine when the festival ends. After all, if people start coming here in the first days of July, the last «festival people» leave the glade high in the mountains, where the camp of hundreds of tents, campfires and concert venues is located, in early fall.
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Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus — this is not a complete list of countries from which informals come to Shipot every year. In order to meet their friends, with whom they probably see only here once a year.
In 2013, Shipot gathered its fans for the 21st time. One of the organizers of the festival, who founded it back in the early 90s, Uzhgorod artist and collector of «vinyls» Charlie Brush said: «This hangout in the format of a tent city in the mountains was not invented by us. The annual hippie gathering existed in the times of the USSR. However, then in Latvia, on the shore of the Baltic Sea. But with the collapse of the USSR it became difficult to travel there. Then my friends and I decided to do something similar here in the Carpathians. We chose this place near the Shipot waterfall and named the event after the waterfall. Several times we organized everything, invited guests, and hippies from all over the Union came.
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Then representatives of other cultures began to join the gathering. The fame of the festival quickly spread, it began to self-organize, turned into a living organism. Now everything happens a little differently than in previous years. The young people have multiplied. However, when we started it — we were young too,» says Charlie. He is supported by his brother, musician Peter Brush «Now there are several large camps, hundreds of tents, but those who come here these two decades in a row, hang out in the «lower camp». That’s where the main sessions take place. Closer to the evening, everyone gathers closer to the center of the meadow, gets acquainted, plays together…».
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The origins of the Shipot Festival began just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was first held in 1993. With time the festival lost its exclusively hip orientation. Now all those who wish to show their inner freedom come here.
Those who understand festival movements say that the Shipot festival remains one of the best. It is the only self-organized and the oldest in Ukraine. There are no famous performers or ready-made music program, but there is a lot of music here. Festival participants create the entertainment program themselves. The rule of thumb here is to bring two or four «big» batteries for a tape recorder and put them in a common pile. This is for general music. If there is a break in live music at the Chipot, the tape recorder plays old rock from the 60s — the heyday of rock music.
Over the two decades of the festival’s existence, it has gained its own traditions and legends. To know them all, it would hardly be enough to come here just once.
Festival regulars say: «It doesn’t matter if you’re a punk nihilist or a nudist-anarchist — you can only cut down dry trees, trash should be taken out, and fire should be kept away from tree trunks. Unwritten rules that most adhere to. Those who don’t comply get reprimanded by neighbors or local authorities — the ‘old-school’ hippies who founded Shipot.»
The apogee of the festival is the night of Ivan Kupala. It is on this night that a huge hearth is lit, which gets bigger and bigger every year.
They build it all day long, bringing down trees to the clearing. Everyone works together on the construction of the hearth, despite ideological contradictions, differences in musical tastes and language of communication. For example, it was interesting to see how one trunk was carried together by a punk with a high Mohawk, a hippie with round «Lennon’s» glasses and an ultra-nationalist with a portrait of Taras Shevchenko tattooed on his chest and the inscription on his skin «Ukraine above all».
While men build a hearth, girls cook food, take care of «small hearths», bathe in the mountain stream and weave wreaths from daisies and ferns. Wreaths will be useful in the night round dance around a blazing fire, which is impossible to get closer than 10-15 meters because of the intense heat. The bravest ones dance around completely naked to the sounds of tamtams, darbuk and djembe.
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The apotheosis of inner freedom. The atmosphere is truly «wine, love and rock and roll».
Wine is sold to the festival people by the inhabitants of the village Pilipec, lying at the foot of the mountain. The peasants, who were initially as unhappy about the Fest, during which everything within a radius of a few kilometers is filled with strange people, have learned to capitalize on the inevitable annual action. Now Pilipchans sell wine and blueberries to the thirsty, give rooms to those for whom sleeping in tents is too extreme, built mini-hotels. Prices in local stores during the festival soar one and a half times. But the «residents» of Shipot are not upset. After all, the festival of music, unity and fire happens only once a year, so wine, freedom and bottomless sky should be enough.