7th Lapta Tourism Festival
Folklore Evening
By Margaret Sheard
Photos by Chris Elliott
The build up to the 7th Lapta Tourism Festival started with a special folk evening for invited guests at the new Le Chateau Lambousa Hotel in Lapta, a fantastic venue and a wonderful evening with performances by folk dance groups from Chile, Cyprus, Russia, Serbia and Turkey.
The evening started with a speech of welcome from Mayor of Lapta, Fuat Namsoy which was followed by an exchange of gifts from the visiting folk dance groups from Turkey, Serbia, Russia and Chile.
We then all sat down at the tables arranged by the pool to a feast of mezes and other typically Cypriot dishes and had a chance to speak 
with the other people sharing our table, a mixed nationality group of Cypriot, English, German and Russian. There was Kerem Hassan from Cyprus Today and his friend from ADA TV, Ralph Kratzer from TFR with his friend Sarah, Sergey Eletskikh and his wife Inna. We hadn’t seen Sergey and his wife for a long time and it was so nice to meet up with them again. We are so busy with cyprusscene.com, and so is Ralph with the TFR website and Sergey with his Russian website, so it is no wonder we do not get together as often as we would like.
There was only one downside to the evening and that was it was extremely windy with occasionally gusting wind causing the tablecloths to virtually take off, napkins and serviettes flying and the staff making great efforts to keep the items still on the table to stay put. However, this little glitch did not spoil the 
enjoyment which was to come with the folk dancing from the visiting countries along with the Cypriot hosts. What a wonderful display it was and the guests were joining in with their own versions to the music of the individual countries. It is so satisfying to see at this sort of gathering that there are no boundaries and everyone gets on so well together.
At one point there was a singing contest where all of the folk groups gave their rendition of one particular piece of music, I am not sure what that was all about but at the end it was the group from Chile which won and listening to them I would also agree they gave the best performance.
So, apart from the windy evening, it was a huge success and very enjoyable. Many thanks to the Mayor, Fuat Namsoy and to our friend Berke Ertopaloğlu, Mustafa Aktug and the rest of the team from Lapta Belediyesi for another wonderful event and we wish every success to the Festival which is taking place from 19th to 22nd June in Lapta village. The folklore show featuring the visiting groups from Turkey, Russia, Chile and Serbia, together with the dancers from Cyprus, will be on Saturday 21st June, starting at 8pm.
