“We sold over 1000 books. And on Sunday night the marriage was shown on the main Polish television news...”

CHAKRA (Poland) - August 26, 1999: I thought you might want to report on “Chakra” about the success of “Krsna’s Village of Peace” at the annual Polish Woodstock festival 2 weeks ago. As you may know, we are very close friends with the main organizer, Jurek Owsiak, who is a famous Polish humanitarian. He organizes the Woodstock festival in Poland each year as a free event to thank the youth of the country who help him raise money for his charity work. For the past 3 years he has invited my summer festival group of 300 devotees to participate. This year the Woodstock festival was almost cancelled by the governor of state, for “security reasons.” He said he was apprehensive after the rioting which took place at the Woodstock festival in America, a few weeks earlier. But behind the scenes he revealed one his main concerns; that “Krsna’s Village of Peace” was to play to very prominent role role in the festival. After much negotiation, the festival went on as planned.

This year over 320,000 young people came. Our “village” was 12 acres large! We had a tent larger than an American football field. I rented it from a company in Germany. Our village started just 150 meters from the main Woodstock stage. We had a stage show consisting of kirtans, lectures, theater performances and Indian dance from 11 am in the morning to midnight every day of the 4 day event. Each night when our well known reagee band ( also called “Village of Peace” ) played, the tent was packed with up to 8,000 kids. It was an amazing experiance watching so many of them screaming the holy names.

We had 25 other tents depicting various aspects of Vedic culture, much like Madhuha’s “Festival of India” in the States. Most of them are part of our regular festival program. We rented a tent for prasadam distribution that was 30 meters long. There were four lines of kids, hundreds deep, throughout the entire festival. We sold 61,000 plates of prasadam. All of the 22 tons of bhoga were donated and in this way we covered our expenses for the festival.

On Sunday, the last day, our band played on the main stage to an estimated crowd of 100,000 people. The 52 bands who played at the festival were each given only 20 minutes to play. But Jurek gave our band one full hour. It was a fantastic concert. Earlier in the day we had Sri Prahlad’s and Rukmini Priya’s marriage in our tent. 6,000 people came!. During our concert on the main stage Jurek came out and asked all the kids to sing a traditional Polish song wishing Sri Prahlad and his wife good luck in their marriage. Tens of thousands of kids sang and concluded with an deafening, “Hare Krsna”!!

A number of sannyasis were present in our village; Jayapataka Maharaja, Radhanatha Swami, Sivarama Swami, Trivikram Swami, Nityodita Swami and Kavicandra Swami. All of them preached for hours each day in our “Questions and Answers” tents.

We sold over 1000 books. And on Sunday night the marriage was shown on the main Polish television news broadcast for 2 1/2 minutes. Associated Press also covered the event. Internationally we were mentioned for our mass distribution of food and for keeping the Polish Woodstock festival “peaceful.”

Altogether, it was a maha yajna. Sivarama Maharaja described our presence there as, “A great historical event.”

All glories to Sri Krsna Samkirtan!!

Your servant, Indradyumna Swami

© CHAKRA 26-Aug-1999

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