Russian tourists massively hand over tickets to a large-scale music festival in Baku Dream Fest 2025 due to the exclusion of Russian stars not only from the list of participants, but also presenters. This is reported by the Shot telegram channel.
Russian performers were mostly replaced by Azerbaijani artists. Regina Todorenko and Milos Bikovic were announced as presenters earlier, they will be replaced by People's Artist of Azerbaijan Murad Dadashov and TV presenter Usnia Maharramova. Moreover, Todorenko already led the first Dream Fest, which was held last year. Bikovich's participation was due to the fact that one of the evenings of the festival will be dedicated to the memory of People's Artist of the USSR Muslim Magomayev, whom the Serbian actor played in the biographical series "Magomayev" (2020).
Timati, "Hands Up" and Sergey Zhukov, MOT, Klava Coca, Egor Creed, EADaily, Alsou, Stas Pieha, Basta were previously announced in the festival program.
"Russians who planned to hang out with their favorite hits complain that 4-6 performers out of more than 30 artists now know. So the mass delivery of tickets back began," the publication says.
Moreover, the cost of tickets ranges from 4 thousand rubles in the fan zone to 226.5 thousand at the vip gold tariff only for one evening, and the festival program is designed for four days.
In the festival's social media account, users are outraged, reminding that they can listen to Azerbaijani artists regularly and outside the festival, while tickets were bought for Dream Fest specifically because of Russian performers.
"Dream Fest 2025 failed", "It's scary to go somehow. And so I wanted to", "Congratulations, this will be the most rotten festival in the history of "heat", "I don't understand what music has to do with it. They simply removed all those because of whom people bought tickets," the frustrated spectators write.
A warning about the replacement of the program was posted on the official website of the event, not directly indicating the exclusion of Russian artists, but with an indication of the "message of the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan dated June 20."
Dream Fest 2025 will be held on the coast of the Caspian Sea from July 23 to 26. A year earlier, Stas Mikhailov, Irina Dubtsova, Ani Lorak, Marie Kraymbreri, Lucy Chebotina and others performed at the festival.
As EADaily reported, earlier Azerbaijan announced the cancellation of all cultural events on the Russian line.
At the same time, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Culture, composer and singer Denis Maidanov expressed confidence that the Russian side would not stoop to persecuting artists. In particular, he ruled out canceling Emin Agalarov's concerts.
Today, on July 3, it became known that Emin's concert in Svetlogorsk, scheduled for July 6, 2025, is postponed for a year.
The artist himself explained the postponement of the concert "by the inability to agree on the next dates." At the same time, Emin promised that he would definitely perform in the Kaliningrad region in July 2026.
The organizer of the first and second Dream Fest festivals is Emin Agalarov.