"Cynicism is off the charts": Russians want to hold a music festival in temporarily occupied Mariupol
The Russian occupiers plan to hold a music festival called MRPL FEST in the temporarily occupied Mariupol, Donetsk region, using the identity of the Ukrainian MRPL City Fest. The Misto Marii community reports this.
MRPL City Fest is one of the most famous Ukrainian festivals held on the coast of the Azov Sea. It took place from 2017 to 2021, before the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The event became a symbol of the city's renewal as a cultural center in the east of the country.
Currently, the occupiers are trying not only to use a famous name, but also to "erase memory, rewrite history, and appropriate culture," the community claims. "The cynicism is overwhelming: they wiped the city off the map, killed thousands of people, and now they are organizing a 'celebration of life' on the smelling ashes of death," the activists say.
One of the Russian websites has already published an announcement with a ticket booking option, but the exact dates of the event and the list of artists have not yet been disclosed.
