Спасская башня

The tradition & historical record

The Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival (Russian: Международный военно-музыкальный фестиваль «Спасская башня», romanized: Mezhdunarodny voyenno-muzykalny festival "Spasskaya bashnya") is an annual military music event and military tattoo held in Moscow on Red Square. Participating in the festival are Russian and foreign military bands, folk groups, and honor guard units of foreign countries. More than 40 countries have taken part in the festival since 2006. It is named after the world-famous Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin. Its TV partner is TV Centre. The festival's motto is "To Revive Traditions and Preserve History". In 2020, the directorate of the festival became a full-fledged member of the Asian Marching Band Confederation (AMBC). ¹

The following is a timeline of the festival's history: ¹

2007: It took place on Poklonnaya Hill and celebrated the Moscow City Day. The event was seen by more than 50,000 people. 2008: The event was referred to as the International Military Music Festival "The Kremlin Zorya". The Foreign and Commonwealth Office banned British Army bagpipers from travelling to event in protest of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. The move was criticized by Brigadier Melville Jameson of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and Vitaly Mironov of the Kremlin Zorya Foundation, with both accusing Foreign Secretary David Miliband of "playing politics" in a cultural event. 2014: 1,500 military musicians and honor guards from 10 countries took part in the festival. The theme of the festival marked the First World War centenary. 2015: The festival celebrated the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. 2016: Attended by over a 1,000 musicians. Participating teams included those from Austria, Greece, the European Union, Italy, Mongolia, Singapore, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Israel, Belarus, and Scotland. The tattoo began with a minute of silence for the 291 victims of the August 2016 Central Italy earthquake. 2017: The tattoo celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the festival. It also honoured Lieutenant General Valery Khalilov, the musical director of the festival who died along with the entire Alexandrov Ensemble in the 2016 Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 crash. Over a thousand musicians from 40 young bands of the Central Federal District took part in the festival as part of a larger Children's Combined Band. ¹

The Bands in the Parks is a program sponsored by Directorate of the Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival and is carried out from May to August in support of the Ministry of Defense of Russia and the Government of Moscow. The first of these performances took place at VDNKh in 2016 and was greeted with a standing ovation by Muscovites and guests of the capital. In the anniversary year a year later, the program of performances was expanded. The number of concerts and city venues involved in the project has increased. ¹

Normally, each festival included a maximum of 12 countries, apart from Russia. ¹

Other low-level participants have included the Republican Specialized Academic Lyceum of Music of the Uzbekistan National Guard and the National Presidential Band of Ukraine. ¹

Svetlana Medvedeva, 3rd First Lady of Russia Army General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff General Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Minister of Internal Affairs Belarusian Defence Minister Andrei Ravkov and his wife Natalia Princess Stéphanie of Monaco Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Wahab Khan, Pakistan Army School of Music Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, King of Bahrain Lieutenant General Christos Vaitsis, Chief of the Hellenic Air Force General Staff ¹

The President of Russia in his/her position as Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces usually delivers a message of congratulations to the organizers and participants of the festival. Greetings are also given by the Russian Defence Minister and the Mayor of Moscow. The day before the festival's opening ceremony, the directors of the participating bands lay wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Alexander Garden. The festival usually coincides with Moscow's City Day, which means that some of the participating bands take part in the procession along Tverskaya Street. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Spasskaya Tower Military Music Festival and Tattoo”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Spasskaya Bashnya (festival) is Military music event in Red Square, Moscow, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²