“From the big names, or headliners, I've lost Vladislav Delay”, Fedorenko wrily accounts, “This is really bad, as people were looking forward to him very much. A few more artists, like Antoine Chessex, eRikm and Dictaphone canceled their shows by themselves for objective reasons - because of dates shift, or a change of distance to travel.”. The general level of understanding was remarkably, high, however and just when he least expected it, the situation suddenly took a turn for the better: “When I came back to Kiev, I recieved a proposition from Andreas Tilliander, who performed on my other festival ‘Detali Zvuku’ two years ago, to perform at Kvitnu Fest. Andreas offered me really good and friendly conditions and now I also have Mokira in the line-up, which was absolutely unexpected and great!”

It was much harder to get a grip on the monetary issues and the question of organising a location. And yet, the latter was resolved rather quickly, as club owners were quite willing to make an exception for the festival’s still extremely promising line-up. But other than some support for the Polish acts from the Polish Institute and some minor subsidies from the Swedish Embassy, no angelic saviour came to the rescue. So, in the end, Fedorenko opted for the most straightforward solution: “I've borrowed a lot of money, which allowed me to buy tickets for artists and cover their fees. Now I need a lot of people to come to the festival, so I can at least cover a part of my debts.” He laughs: “Quite simple arithmetic routines.”

Encouraging letters from anxious music fans, journalists and curators have turned him into a moderately optimistic person just one week ahead of the Kvitnu Fest on the 25th and 26th of October. To Fedorenko, it seemed essential to cater to their needs, as he still considers the Ukraine a country with a deep and heartfelt desire for discovering new sounds: “Usually, all artists who are coming to Ukraine from other countries are very impressed by the atmosphere, interest and response from the audience. And our guests are always surprised that festival's audience is very young in general, much younger than at Western festival's. Our audience is happy to accept tons of new information. The more unusual, strange, weird and crazy music will be presented by artists at the festival, the more response he will have - as long as it's performed in a fair and honest fashion.” He still remembers the virgin days of his endeavours: “Our first experimental music festival in 2005 was running for 15 hours nonstop, and it was full house till the very last sound.”

After saving this year’s edition of his festival, however, high and rising rents in Kiev have made him doubtful whether he will be able to continue the story the same way in 2009. Rather, a series of smaller concerts seems more likely, much in the vein of the Scanner gig he organised recently. Until, then however, Fedorenko will have plenty of time to recover from the stress and disappointments. In one respect, he has also recovered his upbeat nature: “I can say that I am still pround of the line-up of this year’s Kvitnu Fest!”

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