One Caucasus Festival, Tserakvi, Georgia © Onnik James Krikorian 2021
The One Caucasus Festival has been and gone, but because of COVID-19 it took on a very different format this year. At first, it seemed as though it would be held as it always has been, with musicians from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and elsewhere performing in a festival area conceived and constructed by architects from throughout the region and abroad too.
Unfortunately, however, a worsening of the pandemic situation in Georgia meant that all those plans had to be shelved at the very last minute, even though entrance would have required either proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test.
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Of course, One Caucasus isn’t just about the music or even the teams compromising Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian citizens working alongside an international team of volunteers. It’s also about a participatory budget for local communities and educational workshops for kids in the villages in the Marneuli district of the Kvemo Kartli region.
Close to Georgia’s borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan, those activities were able to be held regardless of the new restrictions, but something else needed to be done if One Caucasus was to live up to its reputation as ‘the most inspiring festival in the region.’
So, undaunted, the One Caucasus team continued their collaboration started last year with the Georgian National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and decided to raise awareness of the importance of vaccination in a country where vaccine-hesitancy remains high. Not only would they launch a competition for young people to make short videos about combatting COVID-19, but they would also take some live music to local villages on a mobile stage while the NCDC would provide a mobile vaccination clinic.
This was an important decision given how difficult it is for some villagers to travel to hospitals for vaccination in even nearby urban centres. The idea worked out well and on the last weekend of the festival they visited six villages, including the ethnic Armenian-Azerbaijani co-inhabited village of Khojorni. Materials on COVID-19 and the importance of vaccination were distributed in the Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian languages given that the region is made up of all three ethnic groups.
One Caucasus Festival, Tserakvi, Georgia © Onnik James Krikorian 2021
This year’s volunteer team, however, was smaller than in previous years because of the pandemic and travel restrictions so only three could fly in from Azerbaijan and only one was originally from Armenia. But there were, of course, volunteers from Georgia as well as from Poland and Senegal. And despite the small size of this year’s event, there’s no doubt that it was a success and especially because of the vaccination drive.
Nevertheless, let’s hope it gets back to normal for next year’s edition. It’s one of the few grassroots projects that genuinely not only brings together people from the regions, but also from capital cities and abroad.
One Caucasus Festival, Tserakvi, Georgia © Onnik James Krikorian 2021
Its aim is to foster intercultural understanding and collaboration so I still live in hope that one day international and local NGOs will seize the opportunity to use the One Caucasus Festival to host their events on the sidelines. With a camping site usually part of the festival it’s a no-brainer for youth in particular. Imagine, spend the daylight hours talking peace and regional integration or cooperation before enjoying live music from Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian bands, as well as other countries, when the sun goes down.
There are also spaces to screen films or hold other activities.
One Caucasus Festival, Georgia © Onnik James Krikorian 2021
Ultimately, thinking about the One Caucasus Festival that has been running since 2014, peacebuilding stands more of a chance when communities benefit from donor money that instead goes to bureaucratic and often ineffective NGOs, as well as the luxury holiday resorts and hotels where their events are held. Lessons learned from elsewhere are that it is those communities that are directly or indirectly affected by conflict that can make a difference. Give them a stake in elaborating projects that can foster peace rather than continue with what many critics simply call ‘conflict tourism.’
Moreover, and like the Tekali Process before it, when you include people from the regions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, there’s also the opportunity to finally spread the message much wider than the narrow and usually exclusive English-speaking elites from the capital cities of all three South Caucasus countries. There’s a place for both, of course, but for now it is the masses, as well as the artists, musicians, environmentalists, and other visionaries, that remain excluded from current conflict-resolution projects.
Yet it is those people that could prove the most credible and effective messengers of all. Roll on One Caucasus 2022.
Sevil Suleymanova, the daughter of Azerbaijani IDPs from Khodjali:
“If our generation cannot find peace then it means that this generation has failed.”
© Onnik James Krikorian 2021
For more information on the One Caucasus Festival and how you can become part of it follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
For more of my coverage of the One Caucasus Festival links to published materials can be found here.
