RopeFest, 2012 – a shibari festival in St. Petersburg

RopeFest is the first Russian shibari festival in St. Petersburg. It was held on July 14 and 15, and we are very proud to have been a part of this.

During our stay in St. Petersburg we got so much impressions that I really don’t have a clue on what to write and how to write it to make you understand the sheer awesomeness of it all, the city, the people, the organisation, the location, the motivation, the heart, the openness… it was awesome! 🙂

Just start at the beginning I guess; we have never been to Russia and us noobs had communistic and police-state thoughts about the country. This made us doubt how we would get our ropes, metalwork and BDSM stuff through customs, let alone our-self with a suitcase filled with material to tie up people and have our non-consensual way with ‘m 🙂

This turned out to be no problem at all, our suitcase was for 80% filled with “business items” and we whistled through customs without a problem looking as innocent as we could.  If I would work at customs I would definitely stop Dutch Dame and frisk her. 🙂

We got picked up at the airport by the organisation and dropped of at our place for the duration of the festival. We had time left to spend our first day in beautiful St. Petersburg. It was awesome!

For this two day event we had three planned activities, one big show each day and the last masterclass of the event on the second and last day, the closing spectacle. In-between our planned activities we had time to entertain ourselves, see a little of St. Petersburg (by far not enough) and chitchat with the attendees of the event.

Both shows got very well received with the Russian audience, some shots of the shows.

At the end of the first day there was a party, one of the things I finally learned how to do properly is drink Vodka. The second day was bound to become more challenging per attempt to properly drink vodka… 🙂

The masterclass was a different story all together, since we were last the attendees had seen and learned so much already that we weren’t completely sure what to do in our masterclass. So, you ask a room filled with people what they want to know, see, hear… My bad… I got a little thrown off guard because the first question was about a single ankle upside down suspension. Not the easiest to explain without setting a certain base. The rest was a breeze, the questions kept coming, the attendees were really open en willing to learn not just about (Japanese) bondage but about us as well and our motivation behind the things we do. All together this class is definitely one to remember for a long time.

Right after our masterclass we had an interview about RopeMarks,  RopeFest and (Japanese) bondage for Russian television! *hell yeah* 🙂  

I can honestly say “We have fans in Russia” and to return the favor “Russia has a new fan of the country and its people”.

Update: After this article we received some more imagery:

Bob

RopeFest | RopeMarks