On Thursday and until August 23, Moscow is going to be a bit sticky. The day marks the start of one of Moscow's largest summer events — the second annual Summer Jam Festival. For a week, over 20 venues around the city — each with their own jammy designation, like Nut Bridge or Watermelon Square — will be centers of various jam-related activities. There will be master classes, contests, concerts and games, and of course sale of jammy treats for eating on the spot and pots of jam for consumption over the long, fruitless winter ahead.
The sweet center of the festival will be Manezh Square, where Muscovites and tourists can sample and purchase traditional and exotic jams containing such obscure ingredients as cacti, rose petals and olives.
Six-meter-high fruit statues of orange snails, apricot firebirds and apple horses will decorate the sidewalk from Manezh Square to Ploshchad Revolyutsii, where there will be a rollerblade production of Gianni Rodari's ballet "Cipollino," directed by celebrated ice-skater Pyotr Chernyshov. Cipollino, the Little Onion, fights unfair treatment of the vegetable townspeople by the nasty fruit royalty. Presumably, fairness and jam win in the end.
On Aug. 19, the largest apple pie in world — 250 kilograms — will be baked and offered to the public at Novopushkinsky Park. A petting zoo will open along Tverskoi Bulvar for the youngest festivalgoers.
To view the full menu of festival events, visit the interactive map at leto2015.festmoscow.ru.
