Partnership for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Folklore

Folklore Expeditions in 2024!  (and 2025!)

PREEEF is delighted to announce  2 folklore expeditions to friendly, welcoming Kazakhstan.   Join us to record Russian Cossack songs and family histories, or collect  Kazakh-, Russian- and English-language legends about the spectacular landscape of the Bayanaul mountains.

Or plan way ahead, and secure your place on our January 2025 expedition to Moldova, where we will document the caroling, mumming, masquarading, street-dancing holiday of Malanca, with special focus on “Tsar Maximillian”, a 300-year-old folk play performed door-to-door.

We’d love to have you join us!   Get in touch!

It’s Our 15th Anniversary!  Students get 15%  discount

Undergraduate and graduate students  who are  US citizens or permanent residents get a 15% discount off the expedition fee.  Happy anniversary to us!

Why Collect Folklore?

You’ll learn things you never knew you never knew.

What kinds of mischief are witches accused of ? If people have Youtube do they stop singing their old songs? What kinds of urban legends do Russians tell? Are young people interested in old rituals? How do you make vodka from birch sap? Where do you go to find out?

WE CAN TAKE YOU THERE.

Our expedition volunteers record, film and photograph folklore traditions and the people who are the tradition-bearers. They work under the direction of expert local folklorists who gladly share their knowledge. The field recordings end up in scholarly archives to be preserved for future generations. 

IT CAN BE A LITTLE ROUGH

No luxury hotel, no swimming pool, no fancy restaurant.

BUT THERE ARE COMPENSATIONS

Great home-made hospitality. Spectacular scenery. Immersion in village life. And improvement to your global vision.

Here’s what our volunteers say…

The hospitality of people in the villages was amazing.

I felt that my work made a real contribution. And I loved everyone we met in Verkh-Uimon. I’m dying to get back. All the babushki we interviewed were lovely. Our hostess was wonderful. She let us use the internet from the tractor outside the house.

This trip was the best planned trip I have ever been on in Russia. It was amazing how smoothly it all went. The best part was being allowed to interview one of the villagers on topics of interest to me. The worst part was having to say goodbye to everyone on our last day. It was wonderful how many people came to see us off.

Interviewing trumps all; it was fantastic hearing women recount their stories. And swimming in the Dvina for a break was very nice.