Moscow vs Varanasi graffiti contest - the winner

We are happy to finally announce the winner of the contest — ‘Fire, water, wall’ by Ukranian team Interesny Kazki.

Congratulations!

Most members of the Jury have declared that the style, the symbols and the theme of the works by Interesny Kazki fully befits the contest and the city of Varanasi itself.

The key idea of the work is intercommunication of two elements, that are conflicting by nature - fire and water. Tangled together those two forces are omnipresent in Varanasi - the fire of burning dead bodies converses with the Ganges water. Life and death mix and become inseparable. At the same time those two elements stand for two different cultures - Slavic and Indian.

We would also like to point out a work, which has received special praise from the Jury - The Metro.

Artem Semyanenko has chosen a very modern symbol of Moscow, the logo of the subway and made it look alive. The work has original concept, artfully cragted, has a bit of satire is easy to remember.

You can see the gallery of other works here and the short list here.

So our next step is to make it happen offline - the real graffiti on the Varanasi wall. We expect to paint it in the coming fall. Stay tuned!

Dussehra Ganga festival in Varanasi

Ganga Dusshera is a holy festival celebrated on the tenth day of the month of Jayeshta. The festival is devoted to the worship of holy river Ganga.

It is believed that the ‘Gangavataran’ (the descent of the Ganga) took place at this time. On this day, places such as Varanasi, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Garhmukteswar, Prayag etc. hold special significance.

A huge number of devotees flock to numerous ghats located on the west bank of the river Ganga to bathe in water and carry the river clay home to venerate. A bath in the Ganga is believed to purify the soul and clean it of 10 sins. In Varanasi the special aarti sounds bounce across the city, and in Haridwar aartis and meditation are also performed by a large number of devotees on the river banks.

Ganga water is stored in sealed pots in homes and is used on sacred days.

Ganga moving away from Varanasi ghats

The river of faith, Ganga, is changing course and appears to be moving away from the historic ghats of Varanasi, the abode of Kashi Vishwanath. The river is now flowing 7-10 feet away from the banks. Though the media make it look like some extraordinary event, our local friends there admit, that it's the casual annual decrease in Ganga's waters. Soon with the monsoon, the Ganga will gain strength again.

At the famous Dasaswamegh Ghat, close to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the river is flowing 9 feet away from the ghat steps. At Rajendra Prasad Ghat, Rajghat and Assi Ghat the river is seven, four and five feet away respectively from the ghats’ steps.

According to scientists associated with the Ganga Action Plan, the river is changing course due to massive pollution and lack of proper cleaning of the banks of the river.

Acharya Jitendra of the Ganga Mahasabha says that the administration is not working towards cleaning the Ganga; instead more and more pollutants are being pushed into it.

Moreover, the dams and barrages that have been built upstream are diverting increasing amounts of water for farming and other purposes. For example, around nine percent of Ganga’s waters are diverted to canals at the Bhimgouda barrage.

As per a report, the government has spent Rs 36,448 crore on cleaning the Ganga, yet at Varanasi the river is little more than a deadly cocktail of groundwater, sewage discharge and spillage from tributaries like the Yamuna and the Betwa.