The annual graduation of schools in St. Petersburg, also known as scarlet sails, will be taking place on June 23rd to June 24th from 11 pm to 4 am. This tradition will be broadcasted throughout Russia, and this year’s festival will be attended by at least 24,000 graduates of St. Petersburg. Also accompanying the graduates are around one million residents and guests of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Novgorod, and Pskov regions.

The preparations for the celebrations have already begun. The composition of the organizing committee for the celebration includes representatives of the regional administrations of St. Petersburg. These representatives will have the responsibility of putting together the safety, transportation, lighting, cleaning, and order of the whole event. The whole event will take a lot of time and energy, thus the planning and preparations have already begun three months in advance. 

The celebration will also have a concert, which will take place on Vasilevsky Island. The event will be by invitation only, and will include the Neva River being the center of a fireworks show. The metro for this event will being to work at 4 am, one and a half hours earlier than usual. 

Governor George Poltavchenko instructed the organizers of the festival to take into account comments and suggestions for the graduates. The main question for the organizers is what to do first and how to entertain the guests successfully. Also, the musical preferences for the graduates is another great question which needs to be solved by some kind of poll or vote between a few selected groups.

The governor said that the Scarlet Sails festival is a great tradition for the city of St. Petersburg. It is an important time in everyone’s life to finish their education and the city and people involved in it have the fullest right to treasure the moment for the rest of their lives.

• SCARLET SAILS 2012 | SCHEDULE