OUT THERE IN RUSSIA, A RAVE BEGINS WITH A MYSTICAL VOYAGE

FROM afar, lasers and strobe lights could be seen bursting mutely from
within the island fort, as if it were being consumed by some
mysterious battle, transforming it into a radiant beacon amid the 3
a.m. twilight covering the Gulf of Finland. But as the ferryboat
loaded with young people docked after its three-hour voyage, music
pulsating from the turreted fort broke the stillness. On the first
weekend of July, as many as 10,000 of Russia's youth laid siege to an
abandoned and crumbling Czarist structure some 30 miles off the coast
of St. Petersburg for dancing, performance art and general merriment
during the season of northern Russia's White Nights, when the sun sets
for only three hours.

"Ever since first visiting the fort three years ago, it has been my
obsession to stage a demonstration of modern and electronic culture
here," said Mikhail Barkhin, an artist who organized the party along
with several owners of St. Petersburg clubs, including Decadence, Mama
and Griboyedov. "It's not only a beautiful location, but a dramatic
one. The whole event was meant to be an artistic performance, not just
a party, and part of the performance was the long voyage to get there,
which created the myth, the aura, of voyaging afar to reach some wild
destination."

Wild it certainly was. The derelict fort, known by its nickname Fort
Chumnoi, or Fort Plague, was built 200 years ago to defend St.
Petersburg from invasion by sea, but early in the last century it
became a medical research center for bubonic plague.

The 15-hour party featured D.J.'s playing techno music on three of the
fort's four floors, as well as outside in the main courtyard. There
was also installation art and various performances, including one man
who repeatedly shot off a flamethrower from the second floor over the
heads of the crowd, which twisted hysterically amid steel and brick
debris on the square below. People peered from behind broken walls and
windows on each floor surrounding the courtyard, and some danced on
the roof as the first glimmers of day appeared around 4 a.m.

"It's like a Bosch painting come to life," said Sergei Bugayev, one of
Russia's leading conceptualist artists, who is better known by his
nickname, Africa. "Many of the young people take rave to be something
close to religious ecstasy, and the bizarre nature of the event is
enhanced with the architectural incongruency of a military site being
used to party."

Yevgenie Yevdokimov, 27, who grew up in St. Petersburg but has lived
in Manhattan since 1996, said, "I've never seen anything in New York
as wild as this."

Techno parties are not new in the former Soviet Union. They made their
way there about 10 years ago, part of the worldwide dissemination of
bass-heavy, thumping dance music. The music played at the fort was in
the best traditions of techno from America and Europe. On each floor,
various techno subgenres could be heard: drum 'n' bass on one level,
hardcore on another, and finally, around 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, a
wash of ambient sounds signaling the time to chill out.

The music might be much the same as elsewhere, but in Russia, techno
party locations are becoming ever more exotic. Last summer, dances
were held at an uncompleted nuclear power plant in the Crimea,
Ukraine, and in May there was one at the testing grounds of the
Institute of High Voltage in St. Petersburg.

Until three years ago, the island fort, under the control of the
Russian Ministry of Defense, was a top-secret location forbidden to
the public because of the nearby Kronstadt naval base. It took Mr.
Barkhin nearly all of the last three years to persuade naval
commanders to allow the party.

Russians sometimes boast that their country is the freest in the
world, if not one of the most anarchic, where anything goes. That is
sometimes true, in part because of the absence of lawsuits in Russian
legal practice, which frees the organizers of events like the island
rave from worrying about liability for injuries. But there is also
something deeper, more specific to St. Petersburg itself, that
explains why thousands would endure a three-hour boat ride to party on
a chilly and remote island.

"Something like this could only happen in St. Petersburg because it is
a city with a rich history and many ruins," said Yura Nikitin, a
Moscovite, as he stood on the roof of the fort and surveyed the
crumbling structure. "People in St. Petersburg are more crazy, gutsy
and daring than in Moscow, where people are more pretentious,
money-conscious, and if something is just a little bit uncomfortable,
they go home.

"Most stylish things in Russia -- the whole music and dance scene, for
instance -- in large part come from St. Petersburg to Moscow, which
then develops them commercially and on a bigger scale."

Evelyn Domnitch, a Web site designer from Manhattan who grew up in
Minsk, Belarus, said: "It is becoming quite a tradition in Russia to
do these extreme parties because the people here are more romantic and
free. Westerners are more pragmatic, and worry more about how much
something will cost and whether or not there might be a lawsuit."

The festivities started under an ominous sign. A last-minute blackout
- -- the electricity for the party was provided by a nearby naval vessel
- -- kept revelers waiting on the mainland, and the crowds swelled to
dangerous levels, forcing some to return home. Once on the island,
people climbed onto dangerous ledges on the fort's roof. Organizers
tried, often in vain, to rope off the most threatening areas.
Miraculously, there were no apparent injuries.

"You have to understand that in St. Petersburg we live in darkness for
most of the year, and then for a few months in the summer go crazy
during White Nights," Mr. Bugayev explained.

Besides music and dancing, the party featured art installations by
Ilya Voznesensky, who claims to be a great-grandson of Stalin. His
creations were white cloth faces, first designed on a computer, then
cut out of cotton and hung inside in front of the fort's open windows.
The brisk sea breeze blew the faces into three dimensions, and with
the sunrise at around 4 a.m., the light gave the faces a ghostly appearance.

"I've been to techno parties in France, but this one was
unbelievable," said Thierry Cabot, a French writer, the day after the
party. "In France we might have such a party at a stadium and get
20,000 people to party all night, but this ran all night and day and
was particularly impressive with the White Nights season."

But not everyone admired the goings-on in the gulf. "The fort party
was not a good idea because it was dangerous and it encourages the
drug culture in Russia, which is already strong and growing," said
Katya Bokoutchava, 28, a journalist who covers the St. Petersberg club
scene and is friendly with the organizers. To express her disapproval,
she did not attend the event.

Mr. Barkhin emphasized that his event was a noncommercial, private
affair. It was not advertised, and tickets were free, handed out
through a tight-knit group of people within the city's club scene. He
called the event a gathering of "friends and like-minded people who
wanted to hang out and experience modern electronic culture," meaning
techno music and computer-based art.

By contrast, other techno parties, like this year's version of the
Crimean bash, will be commercially exploited, with ticket sales,
corporate sponsors and heavy press coverage. Mr. Barkhin said he
planned to resist such temptations, even if it meant never staging
another event at the fort. "I don't want my events to go pop, and so
this will probably be the last type of event like this," he said,
staring into the distance over the water. "But you can be sure we will
be back, and with something new."