WINTER TRADITIONS IN IAȘI
Exhibition: “Winter Customs”
Period: 6 December 2022 – 15 January 2023
Location: The Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia – Palace of Culture, Iași
Organiser: The Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia
Each December, the Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia marks the most beloved and expected time of the year by organizing the exhibition “Winter Customs”, which makes reference to the entire repertoire of Romanian winter customs, from old carolling – for which animal masks (the Goat, the Bear, the Horse) and human masks (the Old Man, the Old Woman) are exhibited – to religious songs.
As in winter customs it was very important to place the coming agricultural year under the best auspices, the exhibition included also the plough, along with bells, rope whips and specific musical instruments, that accompany the group from house to house, through the entire village, on New Year’s Eve. Old testimonies of winter customs were also presented through archive photos owned by our museum.
Present-time evidence for the continuity of these customs is provided in two ways. On the one hand, a special place of the exhibition is dedicated to animal and human masks made by a contemporary craftsman – Neculai Matei from Buznea village, Iași county; on the other hand, our visitors can watch recordings with groups of masked people from different localities of Iași county performing “The Goat” and “The Bear” in December 2021.
Craftspeople’s Christmas Fair, 2nd edition
Period: 15 – 18 December 2022
Location: Union Square – Iași
Organisers: “ART – Meșteșugurile Prutului” Association, the Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia
Initiated in 2022, the Craftspeople’s Christmas Fair points out the fact that winter customs are still very well represented in our country and provides an image on their variety. More than 30 craftspeople have been invited to participate to this fair in order to promote traditional crafts related to this field, to display the objects they manufacture for this time of the year and to share their knowledge with the visitors, through demonstrations and workshops.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them. 2021-1-RO01-KA220-VET-000034794