MILDBERRY INSPIRATION hosted Sergey Evdokimov, NTV channel prime broadcasting Director first deputy on strategic planning. He graduated from the faculty of philosophy of Moscow State University, the department of political sciences. Sergey was an editor of “Vremja” program on ORT channel, a producer of “Segodnya” and “Namedni” programs on NTV, a chief-editor of “Programma Maximum”. Evdokimov is one of the creators of “Russian sensations”, “You are superstar”, “NTVshniki”, “Programma Maximum” projects. All these projects are blogged by Sergey himself. He also conducts “Kicking the bucket” ironic column in Action newspaper.

The first part of the meeting had quite an academic touch. However, MILDEBRRY INSPIRATION guests were eagerly listening to a little yet very instructive lecture on the new means of TV content programming, on the break-up line between actual and future TV, as well as on which TV formats would be instrumental in terms of managing TV audience in perspective. The second part included Q & A session being as usual lively and informal.

In September MILDBERRY INSPIRATION guests were the first spectators of “Phoenix night”, the performance of “Dramatics and Direction Center” theater. Premiere is scheduled in the theatre itself later this autumn, so it has not been shown to wide audience yet.

“Phoenix night” consists of three performances-stories, each telling about freedom and its significance in life and creativity, about what happens to those who can not dare to become free, and about how do truly free people look like. The performance was divided in three parts for MILDBERRY INSPIRATION guests so that they could profoundly go through each story.

September 8. The first story performed is based on Yuri Bujda’s tale “Blue Lips”. It tells about a man happy in his folly, who found a way to return to the most striking moment of his life in order to die excited.
Stage Director — Viktoriya Zvyagina. Cast: Yevgeniy Antropov and Marina Vorozhischeva.

September 23. The second part is based on Yuri Bujda’s tale “Three Cats”. It tells about infinite devotion for love, about the courage to ignore chances and opportunities of future in the name of beautiful past.
Stage Director — Viktoriya Zvyagina. Cast: Olga Ozollapiya and Yevgeniy Antropov.

September 30. The third story is based on Tatyana Tolstaya tale “Dear Shura”. This is a story about fear of a missed chance, about fear of doing something to be regretted about afterwards.
Stage Director — Viktoriya Zvyagina. Cast: Anastasia Marchuk and Fyodor Urekin.

This 29-year-old Arshak Sarkissian is already well known in the world of contemporary art. His works were exhibited in Armenia, USA, England, Germany and Cyprus.

Arshak Sarkissian in his works tells us a story of deliverance from prejudices of society, about different people, their freedom and limitations, their pain and joy, loneliness and happiness… Weird freaky people, unusual details, bizarre scenes created by Sarkissian, acting as a stage director, hold the spectator’s attention for a long time.

Sarkissian’s works are a parallel world; and the guide to it is a man with a chicken’s head appearing in various corners of the paintings-shows.

At the opening of exhibition the author told about his art, answered questions and surprised MILDBERRY INSPIRATION guests with a mini-performance playing in it himself.

More details about the artist and his exhibition you’ll find on MILDBERRY GALLERY.

In addition to the project “Fashion Journalism Summer School”, the organizers of MILDBERRY INSPIRATION seriously took care of the problems of the Russian fashion industry. They decided to investigate gradually and started with the mass media presentation of fashion events: who writes? what do they write about? why do they write?

The first meeting, on July 15, was dedicated to printed glossy magazines, which were represented by:

Vladimir Gridin, Editor of the fashion section of the Shopping Guide magazine, winner of the National Fashion Industry Award (2005), member of the Union of Journalists of the Russian Federation and of the MEDIASOYUZ Fashion Journalism Union; Anna Rykova, director of the Cosmopolitan magazine fashion section, who has already studied in practice all the secrets and tricks of glossy journalism during her career from assistant to director of the fashion section.

The meeting was like a press conference where the speakers answered the main question: what qualities must a fashion journalist have? Vladimir spoke about the sense of style, about how important it is to read books with a beautiful turn of phrase, to be erudite, to surprise people not with “who-did-what-with-whom” tales, but with the own distinctive writing manner, the taste for letters and sentences… Related business areas were discussed as well: competition with Internet media, collaboration between the magazine and fashionable brands as well as with PR specialists. The participants also discussed the amount of advertising materials in a magazine.

A week later, on July 22, we met again to discuss the interrelations between the Russian fashion and the Internet media.

Evgeny Malyshev, general director of Icon Communications and founder of the first daily fashion online magazine, FashionGuide.ru, had the honor to open the discussion. Evgeny spoke of the history and development of Russian fashion Internet resources. The second speaker was Dmitry Babushkin, director of the InterModa.ru portal, launched half a year after FashionGuide. Dmitry shared his creative plans with the participants saying that enhancement of a site can attract not only more users, but more advertisers as well. Denis Solopov, founder of the site MNOGOMODNOGO, spoke about his research of Russian designers’ sites and characteristics of making a personal representation on the Internet. The Editor-in-Chief of RIA Moda press agency Valentina Kuznetsova pointed at the low quality of press releases published on fashion Internet portals and stressed the importance of finding real professionals for fashion journalism.

The final speech was made by Irina Karimova, the director of the Fashion Journalism Summer School and of the portal FashionEducation.ru. She pointed out the necessity for mutual support of people involved in the Internet segment for improving the quality of fashion journalists’ education and acceleration of the development of the national fashion industry.

Both meetings resulted in lively discussions on the key problem of the Russian fashion industry — catastrophic lack of professional managers. Economists, financial experts, managers, marketing specialists: it is not a whim, but a necessity; only with their help fashion can become a really profitable business. The quality of business management and future of the industry depend on the quality of preparation of the team… At the end of the meeting, the participants agreed to continue soon the discussions of the vital issues of the Russian fashion industry.

The round table “The image of Russian fashion” completed the series of our fashion-meetings. On July 28, fashion industry professionals and Russian government representatives got together at MILDBERRY office. The discussion was very hot as always: MILDBERRY INSPIRATION guests — excited by a very arguable, yet interesting NTV reportage about Russian fashion industry — disputed about this business in this country, its perspectives, new projects and shared their vision of how common issues could be solved.
The detailed report on the event is available on our friends’ website FashionEducation.

The city music festival — it’s not just a simple party but it’s own genre that calls for a special approach and attitude towards the organisation. This is a complex process of creating a general concept, gathering right information, and carrying out long-term negotiations with representatives from the city administration. A successful festival has to be adjusted to the city’s environment and please the local community. Each festival is like a megaphone for modern trends in music, an opportunity to introduce new names and stimulate creativity in already succeeded professional performers. On June 22, at MILDBERRY INSIRATION round table, the organisers of the city’s most vibrant musical events came together to discuss issues related to music festivals in Moscow.

That evening, the guests of MILDBERRY INSPIRATION were:

Maria Semushkina, the organiser of the city’s biggest annual Russian jazz festival “Usadba Jazz”; Yuri Saprykin and Dmitry Stepanov, representatives of the legendary summer event “Afisha Picnic”; Maxim Silva–Vega, the irreplaceable organiser of the independent music festival “Avant”; Alexei Shcherbina, creator of the international modern music festival and MIGZ media arts; Phillip Mironov, organiser and press-agent of the French festival “Transmusicales” in Moscow; Mikhail Kozyrev, creator and organiser of “Nashestviye” and “Maxidrom”; Evgeny Medvedev, Moscow Government, Director of Cultural Programs Center.

In the spirit of open debate, the guests addressed the problems of organising musical festivals in the city; they discussed the tastes and preferences of the modern Russian public and the festival format’s perception in general. The meeting’s participants analysed western experience of organising city festivals, discussed the festivals’ educational mission and the interaction of organisers with the press as well as the event’s funding from private sponsors and government representatives. It was unanimously pointed out that the festival is a great way to attract attention and create a positive image of the city or even the nation as well as to increase revenue in the sector of tourism. The festival’s organisers discussed their typical mistakes in dealing with the city’s administration and with documents, which makes it possible to hold almost any musical event in the city, as well as the criteria for selecting events that are in need of support. They presented guests and city administration’s representatives with their new ideas and proposals. With great enthusiasm, the guests recalled already existing and devised new city grounds for holding musical festivals in various formats. Thus, we hope that musical festivals will become even bigger, gaining greater significance and finally reaching the “city” scale.