Suzdal (Russia) Bonsai and Suiseki exhibition 2011

On June 17-21 there was the first Russian bonsai and suiseki exhibition in the old town of Suzdal (about 200 km to the East of Moscow) that is part of the so-called Golden Ring of medieval Russian towns between Moscow and Volga River. Suzdal is tiny but perhaps it is best preserved in Russia in terms of old architecture and the overall spirit of history and nature ideally blended together. This exhibition was a joint effort of a tandem (not to be confused with political tandems in Russia! ) of Mikhail Blagoveschensky from Vladimir (suiseki) and myself (bonsai). As you would see Mikhail provided some of his suiseki to accompany my trees. A new local hotel (Nikolayevsky Posad) was kind enough to provide their sport pavilion for the event. The exhibition guests were further entertained by a tee ceremony, origami, Shakuhachi, and Russian folk musicians and dancers etc.

It was a lovely gathering indeed and we plan to make it a regular event. We expect to make one in the early Fall and then perhaps make it an annual event.

Photos of suiseki have been posted in the suiseki forum (https://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/t6702p30-my-suiseki-from-russia)

Best regards,

Andrei Darusenkov


the overall view with a tee ceremony pavilion in the middle...

for me carrying everything back and forth was the main chore of the installation process

Mikhail preparing fabric for the tables...

My wife assisting while the kid asleep

five national and local tv stations announced the event...

wild apple

in front of my favorite creature.....

ginkgo

hawthorn

elm

pseudocydonia

common oak

elm

hornbeam forest

thyme

hornbeam

larch

trident maple forest

folk musicians scrutinizing strange little trees...

Mikhail's wife (Tatyana) having fun while her husband has to explain all over again what is suiseki

origami wizard Anna

a selection of bamboo flutes - not for sale

first live performance for my two month son, it seems he couldn't miss a second of it!
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At long last the time for Mikhail to relax - Russian folk show at the end of the exhibition...

What a wonderful show, thanks so much for sharing!! It's always nice to meet the people involved too.

Your "favorite creature" is beautiful, what is it?

Russell

Russell Coker wrote:What a wonderful show, thanks so much for sharing!! It's always nice to meet the people involved too.

Your "favorite creature" is beautiful, what is it?

Russell

Russel, many thanks! It's an oriental hornbeam.
Best, Andrei

Hi, nice trees I particularly like the Ginko, I am looking for one for my collection.

Hello Andrei. Great exhibition and a nice touch with the pictures of friends and family. Exhibitions wouldn't go ahead without them and always my favorite aspect of a show.

Hi Andrei. Lovely show and great pics showing how it all came together.

Thanks for sharing.

Hi Andrei

Very interesting and beautiful trees. Congratulations.

Pavel

Must say that I find it impressive that you are sharing such a wonderful even with us Mikhael and Andre esspecially as this is not your native language. Luckily a picture tells a thousand words and just looking at the collection is great. Well done and hope to see much more from the both of you

Andrei, you look great, nice seeing you here. Nice trees and display.

Andrei,

Thanks for sharing the news about the show. What a lot of work to take on. Your trees look great. And so does your new son - congratulations.

Great trees with lovely accents. Seems like everyone had tons of fun.

As a student of bonsai, I have one question to ask about some of our display. In some of your pictures, you have your accents placed higher than the tree. Is there any particular reason... I have been to a lot of shows, and most people perch the tree either higher or atleast at the same level as the accent.

- S

Many thanks to everybody for your kind words!

suburbia wrote:Great trees with lovely accents. Seems like everyone had tons of fun.

As a student of bonsai, I have one question to ask about some of our display. In some of your pictures, you have your accents placed higher than the tree. Is there any particular reason... I have been to a lot of shows, and most people perch the tree either higher or atleast at the same level as the accent.

- S

Suburbia, this is a very pertinent and interesting question you're asking. Indeed, it seems that in Japan as a rule the bigger is the element of the composition, the higher it is placed. Though as usual with the rules in bonsai, one may come across exceptions here and there. In my case the reason was trivial. I had to prepare 50-60 trees for this exhibition and there was no way I could get as many stands for these trees, especially bigger ones. Hence, many of the trees were placed on the table without any elevation. Placing accents on the same level would seem boring to me. I guess sameness is a worse enemy than hierarchy of heights and sizes. In other words, in order to avoid symmetry (being on the same level), I opted to elevate accents in some cases, especially if I had appropriate little stands available. In fact, in such cases intuition sometimes is more helpful than the letter of the rules themselves.... )