Geek Picnic is the largest

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an open air festival dedicated to popular science, modern technology, science and art. The first festival was held in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

in 2011. Since 2014, Geek Picnic has been held in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and St. Petersburg. In 2016, the first Geek Picnic was held in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Festivals

2011

The first Geek Picnic took place, at the

New Holland Island New Holland Island () is a historic triangular artificial island in central Saint Petersburg, Russia, dating from the 18th century. It is also known as Admiralty Island. Construction The island was created in 1719, when the newly built Kry ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, on August 6, 2011. It presented several scientific shows, including

3D printing 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

and robotics, as well as indoor and outdoor activities like modern game consoles, monocycles, jumping stilts, gaming zone and sports ground. The festival attracted more than 1500 visitors.

2012

The second Geek Picnic was held at the same location on August, 3rd. It featured a wide variety of events including robot exhibition, a number of lectures in the format of

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

and masterclasses by recognized experts from global (Gaidar Magdanurov from Microsoft, Yury Lifshits from Yahoo!), and Russian IT companies (Grachik Adzhamian, Alexey Voinov, Filipp Katz, Kirill Shichanov), a job fair for programmers and a dedicated Windarium Windows education site. The recreational zone offered open library, gaming space, sports and a picnic. Around 7000 people have visited the event.

2013

In 2013, Geek Picnic was a two-day festival held at

Yelagin Island Yelagin Island () is a park island at the mouth of the Neva River which is part of St. Petersburg, Russia. Yelagin Island is home to the Yelagin Palace but has a few other buildings as well. A former suburban estate of 18 century Russian no ...

. The territory was divided into 4 zones dedicated to technology, science, art and picnic. The festival featured a display of most recent inventions in robotics and 3d printing, interactive science museum, meteorite exhibition and

Fab lab A fab lab (''fabrication laboratory'') is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication. A fab lab is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and variou ...

. Event schedule included lectures by cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, historian Lev Lurie, a known polyglot, language teacher and television presenter Dmitry Petrov, engineer

Anatoly Wasserman Anatoly Aleksandrovich Wasserman (, ; born 9 December 1952) is a politician, journalist and political commentator, political pundit who has won numerous television intellectual quiz shows. Since September 2021 he is a member of the State Duma of ...

, and Nigel Ackland, known to be the world’s first person to receive a bionic prosthetic arm, and numerous entrepreneurs, scientists and academics. The Russian quadcopter racing championship took place during the festival. Recreational areas included food court, playground and open-air exhibitions. Visitor count exceeded 15000 through 2 days.

2014

The winter session of 2014 Geek Picnic took place in VDNKh,

, on January 25–26. Theme zones dedicated to technology, science and art, entertainment, lectorium and a playground for children were set up in a 15 thousand square meters pavilion. A number of speakers including Anatoly Wasserman and futurologist Dmitry Gluchovskiy gave lectures, and the founder of the Venus project

Jacque Fresco Jacque Fresco (March 13, 1916 – May 18, 2017) was an American futurist and self-described social engineer. Self-taught, he worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design. Fresco wrote and lectured his views on susta ...

held a skype conference call. The festival featured musical performance by Alexander Robotnick and the

Desert Planet A desert planet, also known as a dry planet, an arid planet, or a dune planet, is a type of terrestrial planet that is arid at the surface level. Deserts can be cold or hot, and even retain water, like Antarctica or the Sahara on Earth; however, ...

band. The displays included the world’s biggest Tesla coil, 3D bioprinter prototype, quadcopter show, sculptures of Transformers characters and a robot show featuring Exoatlet hauler and InMoove android. The event had 30000 visitors. The summer Geek Picnic was held at

, Saint-Petersburg, in August. The event schedule included over 60 lectures and 30 masterclasses and workshops, drone and robot operation competitions, programming contest. Festival featured DIY-zones, robotics and 3D printing exhibition as well as 3D printed fashion show by Larisa Katz, Pia Hinze and Joshua Harker and had a total of 18000 visitors.

2015

That year, both Moscow and Saint Petersburg festivals took place in summer. The Geek Picnic in Moscow was held in Krasnaya Presnya park and featured 6 theme zones named 'Technology', 'Science', 'Art', 'Picnic', 'Expo' and 'Market'. A huge convention of people with bionic implants and prosthetics was the core event of the festival. Bebionic pioneer igel Ackland Actress ngel Giuffria'

cyborg A cyborg (, a portmanteau of ''cybernetics, cybernetic'' and ''organism'') is a being with both Organic matter, organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.Neil Harbisson, Jens Naumann whose vision is partially restored by brain implant, drummer Jason Barnes with robotic arm, Christian Ristow with large-scale robotic arm 'The Hand of Man,' and model and singer Viktoria Modesta, were among the participants. The musicians who played on the 3D-printed instruments also performed on the Picnic. 2015 Moscow Geek Picnic schedule also included music show performed on 3D printed instruments, fireworks, drone championship, lectures by

, space test pilot Sergey Ryazansky and painter

Boryana Rossa Boryana Rossa (born 1972) is a Bulgarian interdisciplinary artist and curator making performance art, video and photographic work. Life and work Her artwork has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Fine Arts in Sofia, Goethe Institute, the Mo ...

, and a communication session with

Gennady Padalka Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (; born 21 June 1958 in Krasnodar, Soviet Union) is a Russian Air Force officer and Roscosmos cosmonaut. Padalka is the only person to have served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS) four times. He previ ...

and Mikhail Kornienko from aboard the ISS. The festival in Moscow had 22000 visitors. The Saint Petersburg 2015 Geek Picnic was held at Yelagin Island on June, 20th and 21st and had an event schedule similar to earlier Moscow festival. The visitors were greeted by Ristow's 6-ton robotic arm. The educational part of festival featured talks by the head of the

Pushkin Museum The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...

Marina Loshak, artistic director of the Bolshoi Drama Theater

Andrey Moguchy Andrey Anatolyevich Moguchy (; born November 23, 1961, in Leningrad, Soviet Union) is a Russian theatre director, primarily known for his work in drama theatre. Since 2013, Andrey Moguchy is the artistic director of the Bolshoi Drama in St. Peter ...

, musician Oleg Nesterov, ‘Mediaculture’ laboratory head Andrey Svibovich and other science and art workers joined by ‘cyborgs’ Nicolas Huchet and Viktoria Modesta. Pecha Kucha took place during the events. The festival had approximately 25000 visitors.

2016

The first

i Geek Picnic, attended by more than 35 thousand people, took place in the Sacher Park in the center of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

on April 25–27. There were about 150 exhibition stands, of which about 75% were represented by Israeli teams. The Moscow festival was held on June 18–19 in the

Kolomenskoye Kolomenskoye () is a former royal estate situated several kilometers to the southeast of the city center of Moscow, Russia, on the ancient road leading to the town of Kolomna (hence the name). The 390 hectare scenic area overlooks the steep ...

Museum, in St. Petersburg – on June 25–26 on Elagin Island.

Jamie Hyneman James Franklin Hyneman (; born September 25, 1956) is an American special effects expert who was co-host of the television series ''MythBusters'' alongside Adam Savage, where he became known for his distinctive beret and walrus moustache. He ...

, the ''

MythBusters ''MythBusters'' is a science entertainment television series created by Peter Rees (producer), Peter Rees and produced by Beyond International in Australia. The series premiered on the Discovery Channel on January 23, 2003. It was broadcast in ...

'' presenter, became the headliner of Russian festivals. More than 40 people gave lectures, including scientific journalist Asya Kazantseva, sculptor Andrey Bartenev, political analyst Anatoly Vasserman, space exploration popularizer Vitaly Egorov, space pilot and hero of the Russian Federation Anton Shkaplerov and others. Traditionally the festival was divided into zones "Science", "Technology", "Art" and "Picnic".

ITMO University ITMO University (Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics University; ) is a state-supported university in Saint Petersburg and is one of Russia's National Research Universities. ITMO University is one of 15 Russian universities that were ...

had its own section at the Petersburg festival, the Polytechnic University – at the Moscow festival. There was a Mars rover presented by St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications and a five-meter high robot "Dragon", created in Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry. In 2016 Geek Picnic beat the record for attendance: 29,000 people visited the St. Petersburg festival, the Moscow event attracted 27,000 spectators.

2017

In 2017, Moscow's Geek Picnic is scheduled for June 17–18 and will be held on the territory of the Kolomenskoye Museum. The festival in St. Petersburg will be held on June 24–25, in Pulkovo Park in the south of the city. The main theme of the festivals in 2017, co-organized by

Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Lab (; ) is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and operated by a holding company in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky, Natalya Kaspersky a ...

, is "mind games". Among more than 20 invited researchers are Alexander Panchin, Petr Levich, Ilya Zakharov, Daniel Laman and Vasily Klyucharev. The key speaker of the St. Petersburg festival is the science popularizer

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

, the astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss will be the main guest at the Moscow festival.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://geek-picnic.me Festivals in Russia Festivals in Israel Science festivals