StarCon 2004 (Saint-Petersbourg)

The following represents a personal review of the events of StarCon 2004 held in Saint-Petersbourg in the beginning of July

The Con was created and organized by the Russian Star Wars fan club.

During the first weekend of July we traditionally went to the fifth Russian Star Wars convention this time in Saint-Petersbourg.

Three days before we went all the memories of the last StarCon flooded me and made me want to be there again, meet those people again, see those faces and feel the Force. Besides I have been to Saint-Petersbourg only once before and that was a very short passing trip. So, I was very excited, when I boarded my train spiritually I was already there. 38 hours we had to spend in the train passed fast enough with a book.

Day one

Nobody met us at the platform, so we (two my friends and I) took a cab that drove us to the center of the city. The living quarters took place in the building of a kindergarten where we had two big rooms to our convenience and a lot of mattresses to sleep on. That was a luxurious apartment for less than a couple of bucks for the whole duration of the con.

The biggest advantage of this kind of housing is that we can get an improvised discussion or a seminar any time.

We also learned that all the events would take place just 20 minutes by foot from the kindergarten we were living in.

Sergey Lukianenko`s autograph session

Before getting to StarCon events we went to a bookshop. One of the most popular science fiction writers in Russia Sergey Lukianenko was giving an autograph session in one of the bookshops nearby. He was also promoting a new movie based on his book that was released this week. He was nice to the audience and we had a sweet Q&A session as well. But we were late for a free guided trip around the city, we were late just for some five minutes but the bus had gone. What a pity. All the StarCon guest went sight seeing without us. That`s nothing, we were going to get even later on. We had nothing to do all Monday morning waiting for our train anyway, there would be plenty of time to go sight seeing.

We walked along the main avenue of the city, looking around… time passed by. We came to the Young People Palace, small building hidden between historical (or at least they looked like old) buildings in the center of the city to see the opening ceremony of the Con.

Opening Ceremony

Upper row (left to right): Kora (left) and Hope (me) at the con. Costume guys before the opening. Kyle and Anakin (hope you can figure out yourself who is who) Bottom row: Kora`s fan art and Mara in front of it. Kora (left) and Alura in front of Kora`s fan art

It was short but interesting… we got our fan art around the walls… and went to the theater hall with everyone.

We were shown the costume of General Grievous, and a fight between Anakin and Kenobi - that was just a staged fighting with lightsabres.

Opening ceremony

And then we were off back to the kindergarten and our discussions. We talked up till three in the morning… and then went to sleep to be awakened at six by the Rough Squadron guys coming back from their night walk. The kindergarten was locked up with us inside between eleven p.m. and ten a.m. so everyone who wanted to come in had to take a long climb along the drainpipe to the window at the second floor. Which, in fact was forbidden and dangerous. Well there are no rules for Rough Squadron guys and their leader Wedge Antilles who is actually a female over here.

Day two

It was quite a day, packed with events. First, there was a card game championship (Star Wars TCG) (which we substituted for a trip to Russian Museum, it was worth it) then there was viewing of the cartoon series "Clone Wars" as well as some behind the scenes footage of the Episode Three. Later on we watched Episode One with funny translation. It was all fun. There also was supposed to be a seminar with spoilers called "All about Episode Three". I don`t know if it actually took place but knowing Anakin`s passion for it I`d say it did take place. It was scheduled to run simultaneously with the viewing Episode One with funny translation and because I attended the viewing I knew nothing of the seminar. Which was a pity, I don`t mind spoilers.

The events got messed up. There wasn`t any meeting with the actors who voiced the Star Wars characters in the dubbing of the first and the second episodes. It was scheduled but the guys didn`t come to meet us.

We still had a lot of fun especially with the day`s key event the competition of two teams in stand-up comedy. Well, the point is, two teams of people have to make the audience laugh. The jokes have to be smart and funny. Some scenes are prepared in advance and staged, some are on the spot findings. The funniest team wins. It`s like a stand-up comedy but only it`s a team work. This game has no analogues abroad, it`s strictly Russian national stuff.

Upper row: Me in front of the poster. L-Wing and PeterGreat Bottom row: scenes from the stan-up comedy contest

This year that wasn`t was great as it was last time. There were several jokes though. Saint-Petersbourg team won this time. They were better prepared. The Moscow team didn`t take this even seriously and lost as the result.

Then we went back to our sleeping quarters at the kindergarten to be locked up for another night.

Left: our dislocation. Middle: Luther conducts the seminar and (right) we listen to him

There we had a terrific seminar conducted by Luther about the reality of space battles and real sizes of ships and stations. It`s known that Death Star didn`t need to be so huge for the tasks it was designed to do. The ship of 100 kilometers in diameter could house the habitants of several planets, which wasn`t at all needed. 8 kilometers of diameter would be more than enough for a battle station. We went on speculating about the sizes of small and big ships (Luther attended an aviation university or something like that, so he knew the whole thing really good, sizes of torpedoes and what they do, their cost and effectiveness). That was a VERY interesting lecture supported by math formula on everything. We got so much taken by it that went to bed at three a.m. again. Some guys entered the building early morning the way I described earlier - the drainpipe.

Day three

The guys went for the championship of "Jedi Academy" computer game. But for me the day began with the day`s key event - the saberfighting. Saberfighting duels in the center of Saint-Petersbourg. It was beautiful to watch. Then we had seminar on saberfighting conducted by Kyle. The guys who didn`t want to do the sward fights, went to watch "American Graffiti" on video, but for me saberfighting rules anyway, besides I`ve seen "American Graffiti" several times already. There also was a seminar called "Mind Games" going on simultaneously at the palace. It was all about fan psychology. It`s a very interesting topic, but I could take part in such a discussion from home later on if I had another chance. Internet forums and other community opportunity was with me all year around. But living so far from the center of the country… I could attend the saberfighting seminars only at StarCon. Only the one who knew how to do it right could make comments on my fighting. I`m just a beginner, but I love this thing. And the rest of Star Wars community back home depend on me. All the exercises we had were very useful and some of them were new to me.

Saberfighting

Later on we went back to the palace. I find a special fun going around the town in my newly made jedi costume. All foreign guests of Saint-Petersbourg that we met on our way recognized us immediately. But the natives didn`t even notice the costumes or mistook us for hobbits. I had fun anyway.

Photosession

Back at the palace we met with the editorial stuff of the "Prime-Euroznak" publishing house that issues all the Star Wars encyclopedias and stuff like that over here. They said there were several more books in line waiting to be published very soon. Some comic books and some more encyclopedias. Then there was the closing ceremony which was far more interesting that the opening one. We had Anakin in Darth Vader costume on stage and PeterGreat giving the prizes to winners in card and computer game, costume contest and fan art contest. Kora and me collected our prizes for fan art… oh, well, no surprise there wasn`t any other sole contester except us anyway.

StarCon was declared closed till the next July.

Seminar on saberfighting

Closing ceremony and some costumes

Day four

And we had an extra day at Saint-Petersbourg because our train would be only at three p.m Monday. So we had nowhere to go between the Sunday evening and Monday afternoon. And everyone got kicked out of the kindergarten as soon as the con ended. We had to spend the night some place…. And we didn`t find anything better than go for a night excursion around the town. It took place between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. next day. So it suited us fine and it was far cheaper than renting a room in a hotel. Nice bus and not so sticky guide lady. We went sights seeing around all the white night long. Famous bridges getting divided and their bays up in the air. All the lights around and funny and mysterious stories the guide fed us with. It was interesting. I slept through and hour long food break (I don`t know the word for it. Is there a specific name for a meal which is taken between three and four a.m.?). Constant old houses and thin bridges, monuments and rivers… got us tired at the end. But the night passed just fine. The rain started early morning and we sat all day long at a cafe… one or another…before going to the train station to board our train back home.

This StarCon was less interesting that the one last year, but only slightly. I hope to meet all the guys again next year. And as far as I know I will not be alone coming from Perm to StarCon 2005.