Galina Lazareva from Australia became the best poet of International Russian Poetry Festival, TASS reports. She has won all tours of the poetry contest.
The main event of the festival was a tournament of poets from Russian Expat Community. It took place on Saturday in the most popular London church - St. Martin-in-the-Fields situated on the Trafalgar Square.
According to the rules, participants had to write verses having revised one of the lines of A. Pushkin’s poetry, offered by organizers in advance. Initiator of the festival Oleg Borushko has acknowledged that as a rule he chooses something connected to England, however, due to 200th anniversary of the first class of Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum graduates, the writer chose the quotable poem titled 19th of October. The contest participants were offered a line “we are still the same: the world is foreign land for us…”.
Galina Lazareva got People’s Choice Award and later she won the main prize, which is Pushkin’s bust by Odessa sculptor Klim Stepanov. According to Oleg Borushko, the opinion of jury and audience rarely coincides.
Now Galina Lazareva is going to attend the largest Asian literary event - Jaipur festival. Besides, she will be included in the jury of the next festival Pushkin in Britain.
Above the Barriers poetry contest was held in Cambridge University the day before. Its participants had one and a half minute to win audience’s affection by reading the poetry. Jury consisting of Russian speaking students from Cambridge University also chose Galina Lazareva as a winner.
Around eighty literary people sent application for the festival conducted since 2003.
Russkiy Mir
