“The festival is physically instantiated along a road that represents a cultural continuum. The very eastern end of the fest is typically populated by spaces that continue the bardic tradition of Soviet slyoty - “fly-ins”: widespread illicit camping gatherings held by the poetic intelligentsia throughout the latter decades of the USSR, dominated by richly literate acoustic guitar music. Traveling westward, the artistic genres become more expansive - with the center stage featuring any strange blend of nostalgic Russian chanson with Balkan music or klezmer, as well as the classic Soviet art-rock of the 1990s. Finally, at the western edges of the campground, more modern genres abound, representing the post-Soviet embrace of electronic music, dub, experimental theater, and New Age genres. Peopling the interim are countless installations of DIY experimental sculpture or performance art. The culture of these installations is participatory, unprogrammed: people bring their own stuff and set it up, often to the agony of the organizers. The mode of travel throughout festival grounds is, of course, wayfaring, or exploring in a meandering fashion. Here increasingly virtual communities find themselves instantiated in physical space, a kind of reverse diaspora; communities and sub-communities colliding with each other in ever new and exciting combinations. I have had dreams that JetLAG is everywhere, or rather, that it has enveloped the entire world; the mentality I find there is of a localized utopia, not only a joy and openness but an associated problem-solving nature. Here there are, of course, people from many countries, including both Russia and Ukraine - identities are relevant, but not charged. When the war broke out, I dreamt again that JetLAG had somehow landed back in the motherland, that convoys of it were shooting out like polyps into the warzone, flying determinedly through gathering storms. When I awoke, something like this was happening.”

Excerpt from "Ukrainian Roots and Rhizomes: a Story-web and Essay-graph"
‍By Misha Mestechkin
Friend of JetLAG
Co-Conspirator of Art-Experience and Mischief