Lithuanian festival – Užgavėnės March 1, 2008

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We are inviting you to visit Lithuania on big festival – call Užgavėnės. Don’t forget the pancakes 😉

Užgavėnės is a Lithuanian festival that takes place during the seventh week before Easter ( Ash Wednesday). Its name in English means “the time before Lent”. The celebration corresponds to Roman Catholic holiday traditions in other parts of the world, such as Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, and Carnaval.

Užgavėnės begins on the night before Ash Wednesday, when an effigy of winter (usually named Morė) is burnt. A major element of the holiday, meant to symbolize the defeat of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, is a staged battle between Lašininis (“porker”), personifying winter, and Kanapinis (“hempen man”), who personifies spring. Devils, witches, goats, the grim reaper, gypsies, and other joyful and frightening characters appear in costume during the celebrations. The participants and masqueraders dance and eat the traditional dish of the holiday – pancakes with a variety of toppings, since round pancakes are a symbol of the returning sun. In the capitol city of Vilnius, the celebration takes place on Gediminas Avenue, as well as at many youth organizations. The festival is a major event at Rumšiškės park.

Educative lecon about Užgavėnės in The National Museum of Lithuania

We are playing with mask from wood

Užgavėnės in school yard

The meat eating season started on Christmas and ended on Shrove Tuesday. In many countries this holiday is celebrated like carnival. Lithuanians preserved very old rituals and games what helped to meet spirits of dead and godnesses of nature. Everybody likes to eat a lot pancakes, hodge- podge, to soot with fire- brand, with ashes.

In the old tradition Carnival was celebrated for 8 days (starting on Sunday). It ends on the 46th day before Easter. On this day nobody is allowed to work. Modern Carnival rituals are only a small piece of the ancient traditions that were created to ensure a good harvest, and to speed the coming of Spring.

10 interesting facts:

In England pancakes were described in writing for the first time in 1439. One Dark Ages book explained that when baking it is necessary to turn the pancake over by flipping it into the air with the frying pan.

From a 1445 manuscript in England the last Tuesday before Lent was known as a day for confessing sins. On this day there were races where big crowds of people competed in running while flipping already cooked pancakes with their frying pans.

It seems for some people it was joyful. For instance Mike Cuzzacrea performed this activity for 3 hours 2 minutes 27 seconds.

Ralf Laue from Leipcigo in the last competition of the “championship of pancakes” reached the title of champion when during 2 minutes threw into the air pancake 416 times.

Throwing pancakes into the air is very old Baltic ritual meaning sacrifice for the Sun inviting her to come back sooner, to warm up the Earth and take away winter. In Lithuania it was a common custom to decorate a tree with pancakes and later with scones. There was a folk tale about an old man who hung scones on a tree.

The French call this day Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”) and not only repent their sins on that day but eat plenty of meat and different fatty foods.

During “fat Tuesday” in many countries there are carnivals and various fests. The most famous of them are New Orleans and Rio de Janerio.

The French believed if while throwing the pancake you make a wish and in one hand you hold the frying pan and in the other a penny, this wish will come true.

The bigest pancake ever was made in September of 2004 Mančesterio Ročdeile. Its diameter was 15 meters, was 2.5 cm thick, and weighted 3 tons (300 kg).

Russians in March of 2002 in Moscow made the narrowest and longest pancake which was 1 km long and 150 square meters .

Next year we are inviting you to visite our festival.

All the best, Jūratė and students

LA VINIFICAZIONE NEL NOSTRO PAESE/ THE WINE-MAKING IN OUR TOWN

 

La vinificazione nel nostro paese

Un tempo nel nostro piccolo paese c’erano delle usanze che ora tendono a sparire. Il nostro era un piccolo paese di tipo contadino, dove il tempo scorreva lento, la gente si conosceva tutta e ogni famiglia, o quasi, provvedeva a tutti i suoi fabbisogni: tra questi c’era il vino.

Quasi tutti possedevano un piccolo appezzamento di terreno ove coltivare un piccolo vigneto,piccolo ma sufficiente al fabbisogno familiare. L’uva prodotta non era di varietà rinomata, ma il vino era buono e soprattutto genuino, e ciò era dovuto principalmente alle colline del nostro paese, ben esposte e adatte alla viticoltura.

In ottobre, tempo della vendemmia, era uno spettacolo veramente eccezionale vedere tanta gente intenta alla raccolta dell’uva e alla vinificazione. Per le campagne ovunque c’era gente che vendemmiava in allegria, dai più giovani ai più anziani, per le strade che dalla campagna portavano in paese si potevano vedere file di asini,i mezzi di trasporto di allora, che portavano l’uva nelle cantine e per i vicoli si poteva assaporare il dolce profumo del mosto in fermentazione che proveniva dalle numerose cantine di tipo familiare sparse ovunque per il paese.

Poi, in brevissimo tempo, c’è stato un cambiamento quasi radicale nel modo di vivere della nostra gente: la società contadina è quasi scomparsa per cedere il posto ad una società industriale. Le numerose piccole vigne sono state abbandonate e nessuno, ad eccezione di qualche nostalgico o di qualche “intenditore”, fa più il vino.

Ora in paese le cantine non ci sono più e quelle che ancora resistono all’avanzare della globalizzazione sono l’ombra di quelle di una volta.Già perché anche da noi è arrivata la globalizzazione che rende la vita tutta uguale, da noi come in qualsiasi altra parte del mondo: tutti vestiamo allo stesso modo, mangiamo le stesse cose e beviamo lo stesso vino.

Ricordare il nostro passato è però molto importante e per questo a scuola facciamo rivivere le numerose tradizioni locali , tra cui “IL MODO DI FARE IL VINO DEI NOSTRI NONNI”

 

WINE-MAKING IN OUR TOWN

Once upon a time, in our little town there were traditions that are going to vanish. Our town was a little agricultural one, where time went away slowly, people knows each other and all the families, or almost, provided their own needs: in which there was the wine.

Almost everybody had a little piece of soil where he cultivate a little vineyard, small but sufficient for the family need. The borne grapes weren’t of high quality but the wine was good and mostly genuine, and that especially because of the hills of our town, well exposed to the sun and suited for the grape-growing.

In October, grape harvest time, seeing many grape harvesting and doing wine-making people was a very exceptional sight. Everywhere through the country there were many grape harvesting people in happiness, from the youngest to the oldest, through the streets from the country to the town you could see rows of donkeys, the means of transport at that time, that carried grapes to the cellars and in the alleys you could smell the sweet perfume of the must coming up from the many cellars situated everywhere in the town.

Then, in a very short time, there was a quite radical change in our people’s lifestyle: the peasant society is almost vanished in front of the industrial society. The many little vineyard were left, and nobody, except for some nostalgic one or some “connoisseur”, makes wine any more.

Nowadays in the town there aren’t cellars any more and the ones, that still remain, although the globalization comes, are only the shape of what they were a time. Yes, it’s so because the globalization also arrived here and makes the life all similar, here just like everywhere in the world: all the ones are dressed in the same way, eat the same things and drink the same wine.

But having memory of our past is very important, that’s why we let our many local traditions live again, among them “ OUR GRANDPARENTS’ WAY TO MAKE WINE”

OUR WINE – MAKING AT SCHOOL:

 

 

 

 

 

Le cantine

Le cantine del nostro paese, oggi, sono soltanto l’ombra sbiadita di quelle di un tempo. Infatti le cantine presenti oggi sul nostro territorio sono poche e di scarso interesse. Sono pochi gli amanti del buon vino e, soprattutto, sono pochi quelli che apprezzano il vino genuino fatto con l’uva e con i metodi dei nostri nonni. E’ più facile e più sbrigativo comprare il vino al supermercato. Un tempo invece ognuno  produceva il suo vino,con caratteristiche sue particolari, da consumare con parsimonia e, soprattutto, da bere con gli amici attorno ad un buon fuocherello, d’inverno, o all’ombra di una maestosa quercia, d’estate. Poi c’erano le numerose cantine pubbliche, dove la gente si incontrava per parlare , discutere,giocare e, perché no, per concludere affari o per firmare un contratto, seduti ad un tavolino quadrato a quattro posti, con davanti una bottiglia di vino dal caratteristico colore rosso rubino. Entrando in una di queste cantine, soprattutto di sera, si faceva fatica a trovare un posto libero, perché a quei tempi esse erano l’unico ritrovo per gli operai. L’aria era carica di fumo, di parole sussurrate da chi stipulava un contratto o gridate da chi giocava a carte, ma soprattutto impregnata di odori vari tra cui spiccava inconfondibile quello del vino. Il cantiniere, allora si chiamava così l’oste, girava instancabile tra i tavoli, portando bottiglie piene e ritirando quelle vuote, sempre gioviale, anche quando alzava la voce per farsi sentire dai suoi clienti. E chi sa perché, me li ricordo tutti paffutelli e dal viso rubicondo: non sarà stato a causa di quel buon vino a cui ricorrevano spesso anche per incoraggiare a bere i propri clienti? Penso proprio di sì.Ricordo che c’erano poi delle cantine private di una certa dimensione che ancor oggi stupirebbero per un paesino come il nostro: c’erano botti in legno veramente eccezionali e che potevano contenere fino a 2000 litri di vino! E ce n’erano fino a quattro o cinque di queste botti! Ma il tempo passa e le consuetudini cambiano e noi ci ritroviamo a parlare, anzi a raccontare queste cose come se fossero di tanti, tanti anni fa, e invece sono passati solo pochi decenni, pochi sì, ma sufficienti a cambiare, a trasformare il modo di vivere e di pensare delle persone.Le cantine  dei nostri giorni sono piccole, con poche botti e, soprattutto, sono silenziose. Quando passo accanto a loro, la mente vola indietro nel tempo, quando ero ragazzo e non mi era permesso entrare, e mi sembra di risentire l’eco delle risate, delle imprecazioni, degli incitamenti e persino delle bestemmie che provenivano dall’interno, e una struggente e incontenibile nostalgia inonda il mio cuore .

Cellars

 Our town cellars, nowadays, are only the  pale shape of what they were a time. In fact there are not many and not interesting cellars nowadays in our territory. The good wine lovers are very little and, moreover, there are very little people tha appreciate the genuine wine made with grapes and with our granparents method. Buying wine at the supermarket is easier and hastier.  Once upon a time instead everyone made his own wine , with its own peculiaruties, for exhausting it in frugality and, moreover, for drinking it with friends around a good little fire in winter, or, under the shape of a majestic oak-tree, in summer. Then there were the many pubblic cellars, where people met themselves for chatting, discussing, playing and, why not, for striking bargains or making a contract, sat down around a four seats squared table opposite a bottle of wine with its pecular rubin red colour.  Going  in one of these cellars, especially in the night, you had difficulty in finding a  free seat, because at that time they were the only meeting place for the workers. The air was filled with smoke, with whispered words by who was making a contract or shouted ones by who was playing cards, but especially was filled with different smells from which the unmistakable wine one stood out.  The  tireless “Cantiniere”, the host was called in this way at that time, went around the tables, bringing full bottles and taking the empty ones,  he was always jolly, even when he shouted to let him heard from his clients. And who knows the why, I remember them always chubby and whit ruddy faces: won’t it have been because of  good wine to which they often resort also for encouraging heir clients to drink I just think yes Then I remember there were some private cellars of a certain dimension that even nowadays would amaze for a little town like ours: there were really special woodden barrels that could contain even 2000 liters of wine! And there were even  four or five of these barrels! But the time goes and the customs change and we find ourselves chatting, or better still telling these things as if they happened many and many years ago and instead only few decades have gone. Yes few ones, but sufficient to change, to modify  people’s lifestyle and thoughts .Nowadays cellars are small, with few barrels, and, moreover, are silently. When I pass near them, my mind flies backwards in the time, when I was a kid and they didn’t allow  me to go in, and I imagine to reheard the echo of the laughs, of the imprecations, of the incitements and even of the blasphemies that came from the inside and a haunting and uncontrollable nostalgia floods my heart!

VISITING TYPICAL CELLARS:

           

   

   

   

   

     Mario e la classe 4^B – Scuola Primaria “A. Ciancia” – Francavilla in Sinni (PZ) Italia