Vlad Vasyukhin

Vlad Vasyukhin, Golden Drum Ambassador from Russia

“I can call myself not only a good friend, but also an old-timer of the festival. I took part in the Golden Drum, if my memory serves me right, 20 times; as a journalist, ambassador, jury member and lecturer. In general, I can talk about the festival endlessly. Golden Drum’s days are among the best events of my life.

The most memorable unforgettable memory dates back to 2004 when I was invited to perform in a special festival’s program “Ethnos and Ethos” as a Russian poet and essayist. I was very worried because the famous film director Krzysztof Zanussi and Jiri Menzel were also in the same content block. We talked about the Polish, Czech and Russian soul, culture, language as the specifics of advertising communication.

To promote my speech, I decided to print a flyer. I even made it in two versions! One was made by a famous Moscow designer Andrey Logvin (with Russian matryoshka), and other – creative director DDB Russia Kirill Smirnov. Kirill got the idea to take a picture of me on Red Square near the Kremlin with a copy of Malevich’s “Black Square” in my hands. It’s two symbols of Russia. We quickly finished this photo shoot, because our presence and stage appearance aroused police interest.”