- It's been a complicated year for Kazantip, Eastern Europe's beloved "imaginary republic." Long story short: their usual spot in Crimea became an epicenter of global conflict, so President Nikita and his gang of "ministers" were forced to reschedule the whole thing and move it to a new location. But against all odds, they landed on their feet—Kazantip 2014 went off without a hitch at Anaklia, a Black Sea resort in Georgia strikingly similar to the previous site (or "territory"). Somehow even the lineup stayed mostly the same.
I was at this year's Kazantip (my second) for about 48 hours—a mere fraction of its 10-day runtime, but enough to get the lay of the land. I arrived at around 1:30 AM on the opening night, following a three-hour drive from the dusty airport in Batumi. Seth Troxler and The Martinez Brothers were already playing on the main stage, so I shoveled down some khachapuri and headed over. En route, I found Kazantip's otherworldly atmosphere mostly intact. Just like in Popovka, the territory was a long strip hugging the Black Sea. Bars, restaurants and small dance floors sat in little pods along the beach between the main stages. Supine "citiZens" sucked on hookahs, while others climbed ladders that stuck straight up out of the beach leading nowhere. There seemed to be a half dozen or so DJs playing at any given moment, with music ranging from European house and techno to wait-for-the-drop stuff. The surreal feel of the place was helped along by the resort itself, with its odd hotels and soaring footbridge, high enough over the water to give you vertigo (especially if you're scootering across it with a hangover).
The main stage was thinly attended when I rolled up—its sprawling concrete dance floor was mostly full, but the bleachers in back were empty. (This would be the case throughout my two days at Kazantip, something some people blamed on mudslides in Georgia, which had closed the only highways leading out of Russia to Anaklia.) The crowd there happily grooved to Troxler and The Martinez Brothers, but the party felt a bit cozier when it moved to the Befooz, a smaller, covered dance floor with a view of the Black Sea, where the trio carried on playing warm and party-friendly house till 6 AM.
On Thursday, the action was split between a Rumors showcase—Guy Gerber, Shaun Reeves and César Merveille—on the main stage and a party with Zip, Sonja Moonear and Ricardo Villalobos at the more intimate Befooz, where I spent most of my night. Sonja Moonear and Zip were classy as usual, playing lean and punchy modern house for a gradually swelling dance floor. Sometime around 4 or 5 AM, the party clicked into gear when Zip dropped Schatrax's "Restless Nights" (that bassline always does it), mixed straight into another Schatrax classic, "Aliana's Journey." Villalobos came on at dawn and played one the best sets I've seen from him in ages, beginning with DJ Slugo's ghetto-house staple "A Blunt" and eventually touching on a number of his own records. "Primer Encuentro Latino-Americano," played with the sun beaming over the booth and the surf rolling in behind the dance floor, was a bit of a moment.
That all wrapped up sometime around midday, and anyone still feeling up for it drifted over to The Space Bar, a tiny outdoor dance floor with great sound just meters from the Black Sea. Deadbeat & Tikiman were at the peak of their live set, the latter hollering over the former's lurching, sonorous beats. When they were done, the Russian DJs Kirill Silantyev (from Easy Changes) and Dasha Redkina carried us through the afternoon with an upbeat set full of well-selected classics—Moodymann's "Black Mahogani," "Mathew Jonson's "Typerope," Nick Holder's "Feelin' Sad." By now the sun was low and orange, throwing long shadows across the pebbles. The beach was filling up. Kazantip was hitting its stride.
As I took in the scene, it felt a little surreal to see Kazantip, in spite of everything, carrying on as it always does. Given the geopolitical events of the past few months, it's impressive this year's edition happened at all, and even more so that it managed to maintain its unique spirit after scrambling to a new venue with barely a moment's notice. The whole thing went so well, in fact, that the organizers seem to have gotten a big head about it. "I hope no one doubts any more that the Republic is able to move rapidly in space and create colonies within a few months," boasts a message on the official website. "We are currently considering several areas for winter colony.... Next stop—EQUATOR." Sounds crazy, but I wouldn't put it past them.
Photo credits: Dmitry Oparin, Ievgen Malolietka, Oleksandr Kosmach, Sergii Anischenko