From August 28 to September 1 in Barentsburg (Svalbard archipelago) with the informational support of the Federal Agency for Tourism musical festival "Grumant" will take place.

The festival is held at the archipelago for the first time but is has the potential to turn into the regular summer event at Svalbard in the future.

The festival programme comprises performances of 5 groups, 8 projects, 15 concerts.

The guests of "Grumant" will see performances by Russian teams – the participants of a number of international and regional festivals of northern musical culture: «Drolls», «Asketics», Tatiana Kalmykova and "Zhivaya Zemlya", Sergey Starostin, «BarentsBurgBand».

All groups are original, they create in different genres – from experimental to folk and ethnic one, yet they all share a love for the northern melodism and old Russian musical traditions.

The festival "Grumant" has an unusual format of musical journey: concert performances will be "moving" around villages – from Barentsburg musicians will go to conserved Russian village of Pyramida and Norwegian one of Longyearbyen.

The audience, following the festival and its performers, will make the journey crossing all key places of the archipelago, under the sounds of music contemplating the beauty of mountains, glaciers and fjords. Some concerts will be held outdoors in open-air format.

Svalbard was called “Grumant” in the old days by Russian Pomors – they were travelling here for fishing and hunting. Pomors had their own culture, music, tradition of performing songs. Since then, many years have passed, yet the tradition of northern music has prevailed.

The source: the official website of the Federal Agency on tourism under the Ministry of culture of Russian Federation