Ravers Vs. Putin: Ukraine’s Wartime Festival

“A tutti quelli che stanno scappando” (To all those who are running away). In the 1992 award-winning Italian film, Mediterraneo (dir. by Gabriele Salvatores), a group of Italian soldiers decide to turn their backs on WWII to live happily on a paradisical Greek island in the Aegean Sea.

The film reminds us of what’s going on in Ukraine. Against the backdrop of a brutal war, thousands of young Ukrainian hippies gathered in the mountains for a giant party: the annual Shypit Festival. Nudity, psychedelics, and dancing around the fire chanting “FUCK PUTIN” ensued.

For many, this was their last chance to party before being conscripted to the front lines.

But then the Ukrainian military showed up and began drafting the young revelers. While it may have ruined the party for some, these hippies are mostly keen to fight. In fact, they may be the first hippies in history who WANT to go to war…