Grushinsky festival

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Grushinsky festival (Russian: Грушинский фестиваль) is an annual Russian bard song festival that has been taking place since 1968. It takes place near the city of Samara, on the Mastryk lakes. The festival takes its name from Valeri Grushin, a student who died during a backcountry camping trip trying to save his drowning friends.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of bard song lovers attend the Grushinsky festival. During Soviet times, the formal oversight of the festival was performed by VLKSM. In the late 1990s, the festival became increasingly commercialized and lost its association with bard songs.