"An international festival will be hosted in Sevastopol in August. No one turned down the invitations to Crimea – neither Americans, nor Europeans," Gubankov said.
The festival, called Sea Jazz, will be held for three days in the city’s central square, although jazz musicians will also perform at other Sevastopol venues and in the city streets, he added.
In November 2015, famous jazz performers and military big bands from across the world took part in the Army Jazz concert at the Central Academic Theatre of the Russian Army in Moscow. That event became a sort of prologue for the Sea Jazz fest in Sevastopol, Gubankov remarked.
This development comes as a surprise, considering how the US and the EU continue to denounce the Crimea’s reunification with Russia, which took place in 2014, and often seek to prevent their citizens from visiting the peninsula.