Shemakhinskaya Bayaderka Festival / Yana Kremneva / 2016

The name of our Festival translates as Dancer from Shemakha. Shemakha is an ancient city of the Shirvan (Shemakha) khanate, which in the 19th century was part of the Russian Empire and was famous for its dancers, who remained after the Persian rule. Russian painter Prince Grigory Gagarin who lived in the Caucasus in 1840–1855 depicted the Shemakha dancers in a series of paintings, in which he referred to them as Bayaderki. In literature, Shemakha dancers are referred to in Comte de Gobineau’s novel La Danseuse de Shamakha, 1876. The French writer Alexander Dumas (the elder) also wrote about the Shemakha Bayaderes in his book Le Caucase: Impressions de voyage, 1859. In addition, the famous Russian officer, scout, a participant in the Caucasian War (1817–1864), Baron Fedor Tornau, also mentioned famous dancers from Shemakha in his book Воспоминанія кавказскаго офицера, 1864. The ancestors of one of the organizers of the Festival were born in Shemakha district.