Vladimir Kozlov

The Energiya Mechty or "Dream Energy" festival is giving graffiti artists a chance to do some officially approved work, painting the walls of the capital's power stations.

As part of the festival, organised by the Moscow United Energy Company (MOEK) and the city government, about 2,500 power stations around town are to be painted.

On May 30 and 31, a preliminary competition began on a district level, with 165 graffiti crews painting the facades of 135 power stations, MOEK said in a press release.

MOEK spokeswoman Rayfa Bitkova said 10 graffiti crews would be selected, one from each of Moscow's administrative districts, to take part in the finals scheduled for June 27.

"For the finals, we'll choose two large plants located next to each other, so that the competing crews can take one wall each and do their paintings within one day," she said, adding that the winning team would be awarded a free trip to an international graffiti festival, most likely in Germany or the Czech Republic.

"The idea of a festival of this kind was originally developed on the grass-roots level," Pyotr Safroshkin, the festival's coordinator for Tagansky district, said in a telephone interview. "Counterculture youths brought forward an idea that officially approved places for graffiti art should be provided. And festivals of this kind are a great opportunity for them to do something legitimate. If they take part in the festival, they get paint, ladders and some security."

According to Safroshkin, the festival is primarily targeting graffiti artists that have been painting for at least a few years and "certainly not 14- or 15-year-old kids who paint something awful on garages."

Meanwhile, illegal graffiti still qualifies as vandalism and is punishable under the Administrative Code with a fine of up to 40,000 roubles, although in most cases underground graffiti artists are never caught.

Safroshkin admitted that the Moscow graffiti community remains divided on whether they should cooperate with city authorities. "Some artists believe that graffiti is a kind of rebellion and don't want to be part of any official initiatives," he said. "The only reason why they could sometimes participate is access to free paint."

Still, the organisers have been able to attract some well-known graffiti artists to take part in the festival, such as 310squad, which has been around since 1997. "We always like to do something good for the city," Stepan Krasnov, one of its members, said by phone. "What we painted at the festival will stay there at least for a while, and also the location was good, near a metro station."

Organizers of graffiti festivals say they would like to engage both "writers", who are more inclined to do "legitimate" work, and "bombers", a more underground breed of graffiti artists. "We sometimes leave, for instance, one wall specifically for bombers, or encourage them to paint their signature tags if empty spaces are left on someone else's graffiti," Safroshkin said.

But artists themselves are more skeptical and don't see festivals like Dream Energy as a significant move towards legalisation of graffiti in Moscow. "Those who paint illegally, like on commuter train cars, will continue to do it," said Krasnov. "They are not interested [in festivals]."

Speaking about the overall situation on the local scene, Krasnov said that many here just copy what Western graffiti artists do, focusing primarily on signature tags and not adding much to existing clichés. "But this is a Western culture in the first place," he said. "So it's difficult to talk about uniqueness."