The All-Kinds-Of-Good Music Festival is born! Klezmer Jam with Frank London, unusual DJ sets, funky poetic readings, Lenya Fedorov playing AUKTYON’s hits in spontaneous collaboration with Collective Works. We are banned from Indian Head Campground for violating loud music restrictions after midnight.

Rock, Pop, Funk, Punk, and World Music celebrate universalism, democratism, and diversity under the symbolic banner of French Chanson. The five full-time stages are not so easy to find in the labyrinths of the enchanted-forest-like Wind Gap campsite. Lenya Fedorov & Vladimir Volkov’s late night concert is shut down by cops for noise violation. This was the one and only concert the legendary Vladimir Volkov ever played with a violin bow (on an old, broken contrabass) (with a borrowed capo from Billy’s Band) because we couldn’t find anything else. We all are proud, enthusiastic, and eager to Keep Going!

Getting a little more international with Little Annie Bandez, BadBuka, Jonathan Kane, and Ned Rotenberg. The tradition of JetKIDS is started: a gala concert for kids, featuring the best artists and songs. Full Moon Resort, typically hosting weddings, welcomes JetLAG’s betrothal with Burning Man Camp, PANGEA’s predecessor. Big barn and stage-equipped bar, good for late night shows, no noise restrictions, but oy! they wouldn’t let you BYOB and make shashlik!

Via Academia networks such as Seelang, we encourage students of Ethnomusicology, Russian Language, and Diaspora Studies to use JetLAG for vacation-time fieldworks, as we come to the picturesque Peaceful Valley Campground! BM tribe grows roots at one of its islands, making trance music, hosting DJs, and art installations, now a characteristic feature of JetLAG! Artesian Films occupy an unplugged sung-poetry bonfire to shoot gorgeous footage of JetLAG to be premiered in the film The Wandering Muse. The legendary AUKTYON comes in full force to play on top of a hill on a stage that was never used again.

Ken Hensley, songwriter of the iconic Uriah Heep, the myth and legend of three or more generations, plays a mutual set with Stantsiya Mir. In the burning sun, Vovka Kozhekin delivers a workshop on managing festivals. Danye Che arranges Ivan Kupala, a.k.a. Ivan Koala, an eccentric subversive Solstice mytho-ritual happening in the woods. Vanya Zhuk and other knights of blues and rock present a tribute to The Doors at the Friday Night Jam. BM Camp brings a dragonfly art-car golf cart. Two school buses start running as JetLAG shuttles. Babies are born, so Babeland is formed. 

The Retro-Futuristic theme is supported by new projects such as Solstice Camp with its Future Tech and Space Utopia music. The premiere cast of the legendary Russian musical NORD OST presents a concert version of the musical on the main stage as the sun sets. Burning Man Camp is enriched by Drum & Dance. The Soviet grass roots songwriters movement КСП/KSP is reKonSePtualized as Kontemporary Sung Poetry. Umka saves the tiring late night bonfire by exploding it with an improvised set of her own and other hits, in addition to her scheduled concert (which also rocked). Psoy & Alyona Arenkova’s philosophical cabaret addresses Russian Silver Age poetry in new unusual songs.

Congenially to the theme, nature provides a synergy of the four elements as Hazmat Modine and Fedorov & Kruzenshtern play beautifully under the pouring (and slightly apocalyptic) rain. We have a great inflow of new guests: the Soviet classic rock artist Mikhail Borzykin, the bardic performance guru Nikolay Yakimov, the inimitable poet with accordion Alexander Timofeyev, the Russian Reggae pioneer Gerbert Morales. Our comrades since 2012, Michael Alpert and Daniel Kahn are back this time as Brothers Nazaroff, with Psoy and Jake Shulman-Ment. Fada, the unique folk music band, sings in Occitan, and Caterpillar Lounge - a mushroom/hookah installation - debuts at BM Camp.

JetLAG’s New Generation steps up to the plate and PANGEA is born as a project by 20-somethings for 20-somethings. A collaboration with Montreal’s Eden Creative features interactive theater, fire eating, and circus art. Hit electronic producer Flamingosis stars on the new stage, Mustelide from Silver Wedding joins in, and the JetLAG Transformative, Art, and Movement Workshop Series is born. Cabaret-Band Silver Wedding, the colorful stand-up bard Vassili Urievski, Russian Roma seven-string guitar virtuoso Vadim Kolpakov with our beloved Vanya Zhuk, Festive band Opa!, and a roaming truck with Drummer (Ruslan) playing a drum set on it.

Bent Knee rocks the stage. Grandparents chill out with their grandkids at PANGEA’s healing centers, drum circles, chai stations, trance music parties and hookah lounges. AUKTYON presents their new album in an awesome set, immediately followed by Fedor Chistyakov, who re-sings his historical “Nol” hits, 30 years later for the first time in the US. An impromptu DJ truck with Georgian DJs makes pit stops at Spell-Art and picks up some kids. A Flame Throwing Playable Organ at PANGEA shoots fire into the air and spooks the neighbors. Daniel Kahn presents a premiere concert of his English translations of Bulat Okudzhava’s songs. He is spontaneously joined by Vanya Zhuk, who also plays two different sets in Russian, Portuguese, and English with Anna Khvostenko and Alisa Ten. M.A.K.U Soundsystem rains down kumbia grooves and prayers for clean water. With the flourishing PANGEA and the beautiful prosperous SPELL-ART stage, JetLAG affirms its historically unique mission of bridging cultures, languages, and generations.

“Our little project, our little baby is just ten years old. Our little project, our BIG baby, or so I have been told” - projects from the Beary Brothers show at Spell-Art stage, while on the Central Stage Flying Balalaika Brothers roar: “Let’s go to JetLAG!” RotFront brings 8 people and emigrantskii raggammuffins from Germany - in return, we give them 2 caravans of whiskey which they drink with the King of Peaceful Valley. Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird make people unknowingly start jiggling their left wings. Fedor Chistyakov in addition to his inspiring collaboration with  local musicians, is filming at JetLAG and gives a sad interview to VofA. Eden Creative takes its last bow after 3 years of collaboration on PANGEA. Our flyers are first time designed by Dimitri Mart who DJs minimalist techno on the stage. Fedorov and Krutogolov play Daniil Kharms on a spooky cloudy night while Alexey Paperny, first time at JetLAG, is finalizing the soundcheck on Spell Art Stage. — Club d’Elf feat. John Ferrara and Seth Moutal Duo in 2 hours of moroccan psychedelic trance and it was nominated as samyj luchshij (the very best) JetLAG set by the Siberian folk rock magic minstrel Natalia Nelubova (who herself plays two shows - a cinema-performance with Alik Alabin at Spell Art, and a shamanic sung poetry concert of the main stage). Time to write epic poems about JetLAG! 

We named it Utopia that year, because, once again, we said that making a festival like JetLAG is a utopia - but the utopia worked! Olya Chikina with friends presents her album Things Are Not As They Appear, arranged and produced by Fedor Chistyakov as part of JetLAG Music Productions. Fedor continues his American journey playing his new and old songs, some of them in English, joined by Slava Tolstoy, Max Ridley, Zhenya Rock (who also plays a wild Roma Gypsy set on Spell-Art), Masha Vasilevskaya and other friends. Leonid Fedorov plays a solo show, followed by the amazing concert of Vezhlivyj Otkaz (first time at JetLAG, back to the US after a really long break). Psoy and Polina Shepherd present their Schlepping-The-Steppes-And-The-Shtetl set “The Stranniki’’. The two wizards (Kalinka Kefir and Sonnensysteme) build two lizards (who beautified the stage and then moved to live at JetLAG HQ). PANGEA;s weird mix of NJ/NYC youth underground & world music program continues with Chinghis Dub debuting their signature Tuvan throat singing rock costumed electronic shamanic show; Mari Geti gets everyone amped and there’s a mosh pit. The utopia worked: it was the first time when we were leaving the campground without promising ourselves to never do that JetLAG again.

2019 was also the first time we knew the theme for the next year before we even left Peaceful Valley: it was decided to be “Synergy". But the pandemic begins in March 2020, right when we are in the middle of planning. So we canceled the live event, but by the summer, we saw the way we could connect across homes and seas – we held a virtual collaboration in partnership with Vovka Kozhekin, our old ally and friend from Stantsiya Mir, whose festival PLATFORMA went online and hosted many festivals as online guest stages in a multi-day marathon, including ours! This came to be an amazing concert of music from JetLAG veteran performers in Russia, US, and worldwide - some live, some pre-recorded. PLATFORMA provided the platform, context, and savvy programmers, JetLAG and others provided the program - this, apparently, is what was meant by “Synergy”. The JetLAG crew also performed live music and art on-site at JetLAG HQ. In particular, it was the premier of a bizarre multimedia improv show called Rhymes With Orange (RMO), which from then on became a regular experience at the festival.

We owe two major features of the year to post-pandemic regulations: July instead of June (just once) and building mostly on local talent, or to put it better, local geniuses. The lineup turns out to be stellar and utterly JetLAG-spirited. Omar Torrez, a mighty guitarist, performed his own songs along with Jon Flaugher on bass. The legendary Sergio Dias of Os Mutantes plays a bizarre unrehearsed set with Zemog, Psoy and Dawn Drake. The inimitable Hazmat Modine are back. The extravagant electrifying Russophones Mad Meg, The Blackfires, Vspyshka rock JetLAG for the first time. THEME CAMPS become PANGEA’s defining feature – Sensorium, the minimal techno stage created by the Georgian producers of Club Zion in NYC; Jungle Atlantis and Kosmic Korner with art spaces, fire dancers, and DJs emerges from the imagination of kids that grew up at JetLAG, Water Spirit’s furnitured apartment with amusements in the pond, and many other autonomous camps and zones led by participants join PANGEA. First year of showcasing Ukrainian art and music, represented by Zelenaya and Ukrainian Village Voices on the PANGEA Stage. Genius Loci was not without a few international guests - Mikhail Bashakov, Roman Lankin and our constant inspirer, Olga Chikina. 

We called it so but later added “No War” for obvious reasons. The war influenced our agenda: together, we raised $35,000 and donated it to JetLAG-connected mutual aid projects in Ukraine - including GDRT, the mission of our medical team and other crew members, and Dania Che’s Ukraine Trust Chain. This was one of the starting points for Jon Kalish's NPR and Forverts stories about us, which also drew attention to the relocant guests from Russia - Alexey Levstein, Max Guselshchikov, Aleksandr Shcherbina. First time we have a completely instrumental set as the Saturday Central Stage headliner - the fantastic “acoustic house music” from Moon Hooch. They shared the stage with Bella’s Bartok, the unprecedented and unpredictable, burlesque Amhersters; the amazing NYC Klezmer team with JetLAG’s pioneer Frank London along with newcomer Eleanore Reissa, a famous singer, actress, playwright, a leading contemporary Yiddish voices; and multilingual psychedelic “non-punk punk” band Varona from California. Insomnia, the all-night absurdist lullaby theater workshop from the Lion brothers and co. made us laugh and sleep creatively. The site-specific show Re: Location expresses the horror and pain of the war in Ukraine. Medukha has an electrifying performance of Ukrainian sledge rock. PANGEA’s opening ceremony features Dream Seed priestesses led by Volga. Chinghis Dub combines Tuvan throat singing with shadow puppets, opera, fantastical costumes. Our collaboration with Fractal Tribe gave us a nighttime DJ program of great psytrance. PANGEA expands into The Village - another place where you can’t get any sleep at this festival.

Welcome to the Circus! We dedicated this JetLAG to the art of circus and escape. The whole territory was inhabited by amazing creatures made by Tom Stevens. They protected, inspired, and delighted. One of them had especially beautiful blue ears, the holding of which brought happiness. Everyone - the crew, all the artists, Joshua Dolgin “Socalled” with his wild mixture of Klezmer, hip-hop and what not; Masha Vasilevskaya with Sveta Ben; the key figure of Moscow club and festival life of the 2000’s Alexey Paperny, and his namesake Alexey Ivashenko who married Russian bardic song to the genre of Broadway musical; and Olya Chikina and Psoy Korolenko; everyone was like these creatures. The energy was amplified by the Time Castle a.k.a. Croissant, our new theater play space, built on-site in just a few days by Aaron Fractal and the JetLAG crew (mostly teenagers covered in paint). It hosted performances by Insomnia, Playback Theater, RMO, Cookie Tongue and lots more. The great weird vibe of PANGEA stage reached to the cine-magic of the Flim-Flam film festival, the expanded Theme Camps, and the new cafe-camp! Speaking of food and beauty, remember tasty cakes from Anton and clothing from Glorka at PANGEA, tasty food from Uzbegim at Central. There was a lot of rain in the beginning but our sunny feelings conquered the rain and the weather was perfect by the time of our final long-awaited guest performance - the luminary and legendary Boris Grebenshikov (who drank tea at the Chai Station and purchased a Glorka hoodie).

This was new for us – learning how to meet new extremes: extreme sun and heat, extreme wind and rain, extreme thunder and lightning, and even the day after the festival, hail. Our team was bolstered by the optimistic drive and sheer will of the crafty Fractalians and jolly Brits: Tom, Byron, and Harry. The sun did not stop them from building the festival, and then the rain did not stop Uta Bekaia from presenting his magical costumed theater spectacle and procession “Re:birth” at PANGEA. It didn’t stop Enver Izmaylov, Crimean Tatar guitar legend, from performing a powerful set at SPELL-ART. It also didn’t stop the DostAevsky project of Garik Bagdagyulyan and Max “Maxus" Guselshikov, who we dearly miss and remember, followed by the inimitable NOM’s tongue-in-cheek art-house rock, to work against the weather. The road to PANGEA’s new stage location and parking lot was lit up by a Kuznetsov family light tower discotheque-laser, and also led the way down to the Theme Camps, TimeCastle and Alcove – new for this year, PANGEA had 2 performance art spaces and late night sound huts. Aba Diop Trio from Senegal, Tahabdra’s unique electronic + live instrument project from Boston, EYM’s experimental jazz trio featuring carnatic singer Varijashree Venugopal, reggae from ReBelle, the renowned Antibalas and others gave JetLAG a truly neoteric (which loosely means “newest”) dimension. And this is not even mentioning the (Meta)Kansk cinema and video art festival, running full time, showing contemporary animations and short films in a homemade movie theater complete with popcorn and fortune-telling operation installations. Just add the Yiddish-revitalizing events Hofenung Stantsye and The Stranniki, plus the beautiful concert of Mikhail Shcherbakov, the luminary of Russian sung poetry. Then you have just the tiniest bit of a picture of what JetLAG Neoteric was like, with the elements raging, the symphony of sounds and scenes, the wet socks and sunburn.

For JetLAG-2025 a new myth was invented, illustrated and animated by Tom Stevens, set to music by Matt Genkin, and voiced by Rhymes with Orange: a story about a cosmic harmony machine, Euphonia, that once broke and needed maintenance through the art of hearing everything together with many different ears. And it worked! Spell-Art featured the long-awaited and uniquely heartfelt concert of bardic song classic Veronika Dolina, a mighty set by virtuoso guitarist Enver Izmaylov, this time joined by his grandson, and many other gorgeous acts. Billy Martin played on PANGEA Stage and led a rhythm-and-improvisation workshop. The young and super-talented The Inquisition, vibrant Squidpig, and many other bands, shone across stages and spaces. And so did the Yiddish and Klezmer scene in its full breadth across all stages: Daniel Kahn in duos with Vanya Zhuk and Jake Shulman-Ment, the klezmer-psychedelic Midwood, our guest from the Bay Area Rowan Katz with a show and a workshop, “When Sonia Met Boris” by Psoy Korolenko and Anna Shternshis, and more. Ukrainian music was also on all stages — Alexander Alabin and Oksana Parshenko at Spell-Art, Medukha at PANGEA, and the rock legend Vopli Vidopliassova on the Central Stage — their leader, Oleg Skrypka, also led the Soul Vibe workshop. There was an enormous number of clown and clownesque sets: Insomnia presented its most expanded version yet, a Dream Diner; alongside the Rhymes with Orange set there was a solo show by Dylan Israelian; Snatch Adams’ eccentric giant-ball spectacle opened for Vopli Vidopliassova; CAT Rave opened the puppetry party portal with the help of all kinds of mystical creatures. We saw unique collaborations: Hazmat Modine with Midwood and Vopli Vidopliassova; Nadya Chechet with the Massachusetts pianist Nate Shafer — a PANGEA person appearing at Spell-Art — and many others, such as The Exuberant Jam, and Olya Chikina’s Central Stage show with Andrew Alikhanov and other friends; the tribute to Leonid Utyosov, arranged by Alik Alabin and Andrey Matlin. Lots of bizarre magical things shone at PANGEA: Totem Fahey's shamanic performance, Dani Che’s night workshop with many accordions, Alisochka’s soulful and magical circle set, mysteriously independent from the techno-trance sounds pulsing nearby. There was also a place for theater (Bardyachaya Sobaka’s play The Steadfast Tin Soldier), cinema (Dina Goder’s Animatorium), and installations, including our beloved Ambient Lighthouse, once carried off by the wind but surviving it — and coming back. As always, too much to tell! But we can say this: this last JetLAG at Peaceful Valley, concluding with a stunning concert by the luminaries of intelligent rock, DeVotchKa, itself crowned our entire history in that place in a truly spectacular way — while simultaneously inspiring new adventures ahead!