As Pavlo Sheparevych, head of the Simferopol Federation of Historical Fencing and organizer of the festival, said in an interview, over 250 fencers from 30 clubs in Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and Russia flocked to the Genoese Helmet festival, which attracted thousands of onlookers from among guests and residents of the Crimea. He believes no festival has been heretofore held in Ukraine on such a grand scale. The Kniazhy Hrad (princely town) festival in Kyiv may be the only exception, but “it was more a Tolkie fan club get-together than an occasion for a mass tourist gathering” and drew some 200 participants.
On its opening day the festival pulled over 4000 guests. For two days the guests of the festival were treated to four staged mass battles involving knights on foot and horseback, infantry, artillery, and archers, all representing Slavonic and European styles of reconstruction. Actors of the Kyiv Stunt Man Theater staged a professional fight in the main arena where costume contests and concerts of a Scottish ensemble named after Paul McCartney of the Kyiv Black Square Improvisation Theater were held and the Drabyna (ladder) Atelier presented Ukrainian costumes and songs. Simultaneously, demonstration performances were given elsewhere, namely one-man, dual and group fights, contests of archers, horseback competitions, and tournaments. Spectators wishing to join in medieval events could have a go at hurling wooden blocks, axes, and daggers and also could try on costumes and armor.
Winners of the tournaments and costume contests were awarded authentic reproductions of weapons such as crossbows, swords, and chain armor. Pavlo Sheparevych explained that the Genoese Helmet festival played host to representatives of several offshoots of the movement, namely role modeling clubs tending to organize role playing in the open air, reconstruction clubs specializing in recreating medieval costumes using available materials and modern seaming techniques, and uniform clubs which reproduce exact copies of costumes by hand using homespun materials and cast buttons and make cloth or raw-hide shoes...
The historical reconstruction and role playing movement originated in Ukraine between 1996 and 1998. The heyday of the movement was in 1998, but young costume battle amateurs keep joining the club. “To illustrate, this year twelve newcomers joined the Simferopol federation, which must be due to our mass gatherings. We stage over twenty grand performances a year,” Pavlo Sheparevych said in an interview. According to him, the historical reconstruction movement is the strongest in three regions of Ukraine: Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa. In the Crimea alone the art of historical reconstruction of medieval events has about 150 devotees.
