cafe 2003 from an american's view brought to you by pyromaniac.

after over a month on the road through remote siberia and mongolia we jump on our train departing ekateringburg for kazan. every city on our path west from vladivostok shows more and more glimpses of the common comforts from home.

we arrive in the morning and await to meet with my main russian contact and host for this excursion pasha (xpasha). he is to escort us to what is currently the most popular demo party in russia, cafe'03. we have however planned to arrive a day early so we can tour the city and get settled in before the activities begin.

after some mixups we are able to meet and things are on their way. first things first, and we learned this very quickly in our first stops along the trans-siberian railway, get your tickets to the next city early. unfortunately, even planning 3 days ahead we have been informed that all tickets on sunday to moscow are sold out!!! however, pasha being the man around town that he is, was able to get us 3 ongoing tickets with some smooth talking and connections of his. now we're ready to roll.

first stop, the official organizers pad. seems half the people are still passed out from organizational/drinking duties from the last night. first person we meet is mma, the main organizer behind the party. we present him with a few beers we aquired in a kiosk near the apartment and now the true scene spirit has begun. :) we discuss some of the dificulties in acquiring a party place and whats in store for the weekend. as more people wake up we make our introductions all around. a few of the guys speak english quite well and the rest are able to get some communication across, and for this i have major respect! ja niet gavarit ruski. one of the guys is the ever entertaining kpa3! we are informed that he will be hosting us at his apartment in the evenings and that we will head on over there later in the day. he also happened to be our very excellent russian teacher. he taught us all 'important' phrases to say when people piss us off. :) armitage was especially quick at picking up these and soon became a russian swearing master under crazy's tutelage. i will remember forever the famous words 'posulj na huj pideras'

now its time to watch some good old russian scene classics at the apartment. it makes me realize how many talented people and productions we simply aren't introduced to because of the language barrier. thats exactly why i'm here, i want to meet these guys and bring our scenes closer together and maybe have some future cooperation on commercial projects. on a seperate note, they are quite familiar with many of the productions of the groups i'm currently a member in. i was quite happy to know that i wasn't coming in as a complete unknown.

later in the day we drop of our stuff at kra3's place and go on a tour of the city with pasha and kra3. the city is quite nice and we spend a great day around the town. even happened to have some girls ask to take photos with our ever sexy tourist selves. :) talk about an ego boost!

in the evening we get our first taste of the party and arrive at the party place. after some searching for the only open entrance we are able to get in. here we meet up with some of the earlycomers including a few very enthusiastic guys from brainwave, cpu (cyber punks united), and the organizational team. we shared a few beers with them and enjoyed their company. however, the organizers inform us that the party place is to be shut down for the evening and that we should retire to our respective sleeping areas.

i must say that this was probably the biggest difference between the european parties i have attended in the past. it unfortunately limits the amount of time you have at the party place, plus you also meet some of the most interesting people when you are nice and drunk and about to pass out in the evening. :)

so we arrive the next day and the party is in full swing! its time to make as many friends as possible. first stop after we have dropped off our stuff, the corner kiosk! people are slowly coming in and the buzz at the beginning of any party has begun. we meet up with mma again as well as some of the organizational staff. we've been informed that quite a lot of local and regional press will be at the partyplace throughout the day and that they would like an interview with us. we're definately down with the idea, anything for self promotion.

i must say that the girls that interviewed us for the tv stations were quite nice, and even offered to show us around in the evening. unfortunately we didn't have time to take them up on their offer. in general we were quite suprised as to how many nice girls were at the party compared to demo parties in western europe. i guess sceners in russia are better at picking up girls or are able to explain the demo scene better to their girlfriends where they don't think its 'weird'.

during the middle of the day the party is in full swing. the party is split up into 2 sections like it is at any good party. the activity going inside with all the competitions and preparation and the party outside filled with people putting themselves into a good mood. we're definately guilty of this as well.

one major difference you will notice at eastern european parties (poland, russia, etc) is that there are very few computers. basically computers that are necessary to run the competitions and a few brought by a limited amount of attendees. i have met people that say that they don't like this setup. i have to disagree, why would you want to come to a party/gathering to just sit behind your computer. the point is to meet the people you have come to know via the computer face to face. so to those of you that believe bringing a computer to a party is necessary, rethink your strategy. finish you production before the party and come to the party to enjoy and kick back with friends!

i must say that the rest of the day starts to blend in with the 2nd day when it comes to the competitions that we viewed and the people we met. all 3 of us were quite please as to how nice of a reception we received from everyone. people came up to us all the time and introduced themselves. this made our jobs of meeting people much easier.

that evening we were invited to participate in what i hear is a russian tradition, the 'party inside the party'. this was quite a nice event, basically all the organizers and a select few people were invited to sit down and have dinner together. not to mention a good amount of drinks. its here that i got to know a bunch of people quite well and i keep contact with them till today and will continue to do so. i can definately say we had a good time and this was one of the highlights of the party.

on a sidenote, there was a beer chugging competition held as well. i happen to have come out as the champion. so while they say russians can drink alot, they can't mess with a veteran like myself! muahahahaha. ;) i look forward to a rematch!

the next day was definately a bit on the chill side since a lot of people were recovering from the previous night. just like the previous days, people eventually got in the mood and were ready to have a good time. today brought on some of the major compos so people were held captive for longer periods of times. many of the productions were pretty good quality. i definately think the coolest compos for me to experienбe throughout the party were the zx spectrum ones. this machine is quite foreign to us but is as integral to the russian scene as the c64 was in europe. you have to respect when people can make a 20 year old machine do kick ass tricks.

after the wild demo compo unfortunately we had to leave to catch our train to moscow. this happened to be the case with quite a few moscow sceners. unfortunately we missed the prize compo, but we still were able to say goodbye to all of our new friends and exchange appropriate contacts. we also were able to have another party via our train! i guess you can't leave the party behind that easily. :)

overall the party atmosphere was great. while the downside was that it wasn't a 24hr party in the true sense, we still were able to meet quite a good amount of the people in attendance. i can't say enough about how cool it is to show up at a demo party and know almost no one. its just the pure rush you felt when you made it to your first demo party and met 20 new people instantly. truly a great feeling. hopefully i'll be able to attend another russian demo party in the future.

i also hope to see many more russian sceners at the symphony demo parties in poland. it really is important to have the european and russian demo scenes have as much contact with each other as possible.

greets go out to: xpasha, kpa3, elf, igor, roman, l-graph, ray noa, djinn, megus, tigrr, mma, mitchell, justinas, vinnny, tagir, alff, chasm, moonshine, mr. joke, diver, lasoft, wlodek black, kano, vivid, lena, crazy, fyrex, grad, adam bazaroff, miguel.

team power amiga, brainwave, cpu, 3umf, 4d & the cafe organizational team.

if we met you at the party and we haven't exchanged emails or we have lost touch please contact us!!!

paul (pyromaniac) - paul@paragon5.com
russ (armitage) symstym@mac.com
dan (fruktose) - danbragiel@yahoo.com

on a seperate note, i'm always looking to work with talented people on commercial oriented projects. if you or your friends are interested, please have them email me.

pyromaniac - calodox, mfx, & madwizards