Roll over Khmelnetsky

After holding the first Ukrainian ethnic music festival, Krayina Mriy (Dream Country), for two years in a row, Oleh Skrypka - the leader of the band Vopli Vidoplyasova - in conjunction with the whole Ukrainian rock movement finally came up with a full-scale rock event: the Rock Sich music festival is now set to take place this weekend on Trukhaniv island.

Originally, "sich" was the old name for fortified areas created by Ukrainian Cossacks as protection against invaders, the most famous of these being the military and political organization "Zaporizka Sich"situated on Khortytsya island. The "Rock Sich" festival, then, according to organizers and Skrypka, symbolizes a fortress of Ukrainian rock-Cossacks aimed at protecting modern rock from the "pop oppression."

In fact, Skrypka had voiced this notion once before ... claiming that pop stifles quality rock and alternative music from developing in Ukraine...

VV ... are about to release their new CD while Skrypka himself chose not to give in to "pop oppression" but instead fight it in his own ways - such as holding a music festival that would resemble the famous European open-air festivals both in quality and organization.

Read the entire Kyiv Post article.