I began yesterday's Instagram post with "I don't even know how to describe what we've witnessed this weekend." I will try my best through words and pictures because it has truly blown our minds!
The first weekend in March (the day after we left last year) there is a huge festival in Lithuania called Kaziuko Muge. The first year this festival was held was the year 1640. People, that's 136 before we even became a country!!! We don't comprehend a national history that is that old. You can tell the people walking around this weekend are proud of their heritage. The purpose of this festival is to mark the coming of spring, something I'm sure folks living through hard, long winters truly look forward to with great anticipation.
We knew the festival was coming when we saw a couple of these stands appear around Old Town. We had seen them last year as they were beginning to set up, as well. They have the name of the festival on the side, and we assume the birdhouses are another symbol for spring.
For several days they have been assembling a stage in front of Town Hall, but on Friday morning all of the booths started going up and filling up. We didn't head out right away because Tyson needed me to proof-read his novel for his creative writing class. I was happy to do it, but by golly, they have got to teach these kids how to punctuate! He's gotten better and he's a good writer and speller, but it still took 3 hours to read through it and help him correct a 46 page story! It was mid afternoon before I was even able to finally shower.
We wandered some, mostly just browsing to get an idea of what was there. But at that point we still didn't know the full scope and scale of this thing.
We were worried when they started setting up this stage right under us that we were going to be hearing rock bands playing all weekend - like what we saw on their Independence Day. Instead, we've been hearing folk music all weekend. Here is a group of middle aged women singing. Sometimes there are dancers or instruments. Some things sound more jazzy and other times you feel like you should do-si-do. The boys were annoyed until I reminded them that they could have bands there playing the stuff like they do in the bar below us on the weekends. And then they were ok with the yodeling and such. We had also worried that the performances would go on late into the night, but every night everyone was done by 8 or 9. I think it's just too cold to be out later.
I was trying to get a shot of the man in the brown jacket dancing.
Here's a group of guys performing on old world looking instruments.
So this whole festival is booths with items for sale and performers celebrating the culture. Vendors from all over the region come here to sell goods. The route begins around the corner from us on Vokieciu (German) Street.
This is our building - we are the 3 dormers on top. Down the left side is Vokieciu. Going down the right leads from Town Hall down to the Vilnius Cathedral, eventually becoming Pilies (Castle) Street.
Looking down Vokieciu (voke-eh-choo) Street.
Looking down at Town Hall and the stage area from our flat.
The street in front of our flat.
So, everywhere there were booths set up, the road was closed to cars. As we started to walk, we began to catch the size of this thing. I don't totally know how long it is, but I'm pretty sure Sarah and I walked at least 2 miles of it on Saturday. I attempted to measure it out on google maps and it is somewhere close to 5 miles of closed roads lined fully with booths. This picture above only shows about 500 ft. It was super crazy on Saturday. One particularly narrow stretch on Pilies Street had us feeling like cattle being squeezed through a narrow alley. Interestingly, you mostly had to watch out for the 50-60 year old women. They were all annoyed by the crowds and would just push at you until they either ran you over or got around you. It was insane!
Here is a sampling of some of the booths. These dried flower arrangements were everywhere. Our taxi driver on the way home from church was really chatty, so Sarah asked him what they meant - almost everyone had one! They have a religious significance. They are to be used to "beat out" anything bad. So, for example, if your kid misbehaves, you whack them with it - it wouldn't really hurt them. (He made it sound like it was something done more jokingly, not a true form of punishment - at least nowadays.) You keep them in your home to also get out anything bad. Then, at the end of spring, you burn it. I guess it kind represents repentance and new beginnings.
The farther we walked, the more we saw repeated items in the booths, but occasionally we would stumble across some really fun things.
A chair made out of tires
Local artwork
Vilnius Cathedral courtyard tents
Replica swords that the kids could wield
Armor they could try on
Or how about a dipped waffle stick
Chocolate and nut waffle - oh yeah!
I tried to capture what it was like, but without being Shawn Bradley or having a ladder to stand on, I just couldn't get a shot above the crowds.
The closest I got to showing it was at an overview at the end of the route that Sarah and I climbed. Zoomed in you can almost get an idea of how very many people there were.
By the time we hit this end of the route, Sarah and I were the only ones left. Adam had to get some work done and Tyson went with him to help. Jacob stuck it out longer than we thought he would. But he left just in time to send him with several of our bags. It is nice that we all know the city so well. Once the road swung around, Jacob knew where we were and was comfortable going on his own - since that was the only alternative to staying with us for more shopping.
And then Sarah and I hit the very best section of the entire festival - the antiques. We wanted to buy everything we saw. There were so many things there that people would go crazy over in the States. We need to start a business where we come here once a year to the festival, buy tons of antiques, then go home and sell them. Everything we asked about was from some European country and was 40 to 100s of years old. And some of the things were just stunning - cleaned up, they would be beyond words! We couldn't actually buy much because of our suitcase limitations, and although things were really well priced, we just didn't have endless amounts to spend. And really, where would we put it all? In the end it was mostly just browsing that we did, but it was just so very fun!
Here are some of our great finds:
I would have walked right past this, not knowing what it was. But thanks to the video game, The Legend of Zelda, Tyson knew it was an ocarina. It sounds like a recorder. The lady showed us how to hold it and play it and gave us a little sheet to show how to play each note. We were also able to buy a book of Theme Songs. The Hobbit theme sounds pretty good on it! Tyson was frustrated in trying to pay it, but Jacob picked up pretty quickly.
Tyson bought his ocarina first and really tried hard to figure out how to play it and make it sound good. Jacob got his the next day, picked it up and could play it right off. He can play all kinds of songs now, even playing some by ear. Tyson was pretty miffed by that.
When you learn that the perfect pair of rubber gardening boots are less than $10, who can resist? Sarah's are purple with white flowers.
Adam was SO excited when I brought these home to him. Both are Russian, are 40-50 years old and still work - if you have the right film. They collect these at his office, so he can't wait to add them to the collection!
We came home too exhausted from almost 8 hours of walking to make dinner, so we visited our friend downstairs - Charlie Pizza. And who wouldn't love ending the day with pizza, pasta and a beet and pear salad!
This is the door leading to our stairwell. You have to push a 3-button code (which they've written on the cork board on the door...) for the door to unlock. It usually takes 5-10 tries before it opens. Our favorite part is the exposed pipe in the ground.
The other side of the door. You can see the effects the weather has had on the front side!
Sunday Afternoon:
It's about 4 pm. There was a closing event with a small parade, more performances and talking. We listened and occasionally watched from our flat, but are glad we didn't go down because right at the end, the heavens opened and it rained hard! It seems that almost as soon as it stopped, people started packing up. I snapped a shot of folks loading up their vans.
We looked out again about 10 pm and all traces of the festival are gone. We are so amazed by the cooperation and organization of such a massive event. I'm glad they didn't get rained on all weekend, though I suppose that's a risk they take every year having it at the beginning of March. Way to go Lithuania!
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