In the first part of September I had the good fortune to be one of only two Americans to take part in the first SCD tour group to visit southern Russia. The tour was organized by a Scottish friend of mine and consisted mainly of dancers from the British Isles, but also included a smattering from Canada, France, Germany, and New Zealand. The basis for the trip was to meet up with a fledgling SCD group based in Krasnodar, the Kuban Scottish Dancers. Krasnodar is the provincial center for the Kuban Steppe, a largely agricultural region that adjoins the western Caucasus and the Black Sea.

So why is there Scottish dancing in this obscure corner of the world that sees very few foreign visitors? A few years back, Ilona Gumenyuk, a Krasnodar native with a background in Russian dance performance, spent some time in Britain looking for employment as a translator. She met up with Scottish dance teacher Fiona Grant, fell in love with Scottish dancing, and arranged to attend the Summer School at St. Andrews during her visit. Ultimately Ilona was unsuccessful in finding a job and returned home, but with a new enthusiasm for Scottish dancing and culture, which led her to start a class in SCD and a club promoting Scottish culture and music. The dance group has now being going for a year and a half and has 50 members, many of whom are students at the local university. The cultural club has attracted a musical ensemble who play Celtic music and sing Scottish songs, even though one of the singers understands no English. Ilona passed the Preliminary Test to become an RSCDS teacher at this year's Summer School, and has done a remarkable job transmitting her enthusiasm and love for things Scottish to the members of her group, along with the pas de basque lessons.

Our tour group flew into Krasnodar airport late on a rainy evening; most of the party had been up more than 24 hours, having departed from London the previous night. The Kuban dancers were out in strength to meet us, and the welcome could not have been warmer; they assisted us with luggage, piled onto the hired coaches with us, and got us settled in our hotel and provided with a late supper. This was only the first indication of how well we would be taken care of during our stay. Every time our coaches left the hotel, several of the dancers accompanied us. Others turned up early to greet us at the classes and other events, and we had personal guides for shopping and sightseeing expeditions.

The morning following our arrival, dance classes got underway at the Palace of Culture, a building equipped with several different halls suitable for dancing, as well as a good-sized theater. The teaching staff consisted of David Queen from Lancashire; Fiona Grant, who resides in Bristol; Malcolm Brown from York; Gate Gray from Wales; Shirley Butterfield from New Zealand, and myself (some of these names will be familiar to strathspey newslist subscribers). Music was most ably provided by Andrew Lyon and James Gray on accordian and piano, and also by David Queen on fiddle when he wasn't teaching; together these three make up the dance band Scotch Measure, and you can hear them on the band's CD release, "First Dram." Rather than arranging classes according to experience level, the visitors simply divided into two equal-sized groups, with the Kuban dancers dispersed among us. The Russians ranged in dance experience as well as in knowledge of English, but the teachers were aware of that and kept explanations simple and visual, and everyone pitched in to help, those who knew both languages translating when necessary. We had two full mornings of classes that weekend, an informal dance on Saturday night, and a program of Russian culture and music on Sunday evening, in addition to museum visits, shopping, socializing, and an elaborate Cossack-style banquet.

The Russian cultural program was excellent in content and organization. All of the Kuban dancers turned up in ethnic costume, and we were entertained with a display of local artists' work before the program began. The formal welcome included the traditional Slavic offering of bread and salt as we entered the hall; each table was laden with local wine, vodka, cookies, and other treats. During the evening we experienced a wide variety of performances, including some of the most poised little girls I've ever seen. Other highlights included Georgian dancers, a gypsy hoop dance, mock medieval battles (who would have expected that the Russian would triumph over the Mongol?) and a wide sampling of different Russian dance and singing styles from various groups local to Krasnodar. We were taught a folksong, encouraged to join the dancing, and given lessons in how to drink vodka (which had repercussions in some cases).

The following day, our tour group headed off for several days at a resort on the Black Sea, about 2 hours' drive from Krasnodar. Here we enjoyed swimming, trail-walking, massage, more dance classes, general R&R, and a couple of very Russian activities, including a trip up into the Caucasus Mountains for a barbecue and a Russian bath (similar to a sauna, with the addition of bunches of oak leaves to flail each other with and a cold outdoor plunge to invigorate the system!). We also had a class from Ilona in Soviet-style dance; this was drawn from a program formerly administered in schools as a competitive activity and consisted of couples' dances choreographed to traditional folk music. The last night of our stay, we had a formal dinner in the rooftop restaurant and put on a bit of a ceilidh for some local dignitaries and other guests. We thought it was good fun singing a few Scottish songs and doing a demonstration dance or two, but were bowled over when some Russians came over to talk to us afterward in the lounge and said they were professional musicians who had driven up from another town 4 hours away when they heard about our event! This was not the only time people at neighboring tables heard English being spoken and immediately wanted to demonstrate their good will by buying us drinks, chatting, or dedicating musical numbers. An experience quite unlike the normal reception afforded an American tourist!

We came back to Krasnodar for another weekend of classes, a ceilidh dance, and a formal ball. Once again, the impact of our visit was as surprising to us as to our hosts, if not more so. We were told that some officials would be attending and the organizers and teachers were asked to show up a bit early in case someone wanted to interview us. When we arrived, there were half a dozen TV camera teams, and we were told later that they represented national Russian media! Some of the camera operators stayed most of the evening, filming the various proceedings. Notable among the ceilidh performances was the act presented by David Queen, who one-upped the performance many will remember from Elke Baker at Asilomar a couple years ago, when she danced the Highland Fling and accompanied herself on the fiddle. David played fiddle while dancing the Seann Truibhas, a significantly more complex endeavor in that this dance moves around a significant area. The Kuban dancers dramatized a Burns poem with a choreographed tango, proving a remarkable melding of different cultures.

With the ball behind us (complete with a dance featuring zdravstvuite-do svidaniya, or hello-goodbye, setting) and an after-party at which we crammed 25 people into a minuscule hotel room (8 of them on the same single bed for a while), all that were left were the farewells and the return journeys. The farewells were as warm as the welcomes, with hugs and promises to meet up again. One of the youngest Russian dancers said that he was sending a piece of his heart away with us across the sea... I'd happily return, and hope to encourage more interactions between the cultures.

Alan Twhigg