19th of February 2023

Shrovetide is the last holiday before the Lent, where you can have fun, be noisy and eat rich meat dishes. Visit the Estonian Open Air Museum to get acquainted with traditional shrovetide customs: eat pig legs and make a spinning top out of pig legs, learn how to care and braid your hair, learn about the nine steps of linen work, learn traditional shrove songs and take them with you to the sled hill, listen, who is the Wildling and send away the dirt and the evil that accumulated during the past year. You can see the cleansing fireshow by Zerkala in the village square and the making of the shrove buns in the Kolkhoz apartment building.

Shrovetide activities in the buildings – 11:00-16:00

Entrance with the museum ticket.

Windmills hill
If the weather allows, there will be slopes for sledging and an ice merry-go-round at the windmills.

Kolkhoz apartment building – semla rolls ‘vastlakukkel’
In the 2019 apartment of the Kolkhoz dwelling, the owner will be baking ‘vastlakukkel’ rolls, a traditional Shrove Tuesday dessert, which has been a favourite for a century.

Kuie school – bone spinners
When spinners made of pig trotter bones spin, they make a distinct buzzing sound, which was believed to scare away evil spirits. Feel free to join the workshop in the school building and make a spinner to protect you from evil!

Lau Village Store – fix up your hair!

On Shrove Tuesday, you need to carefully comb and cut your hair for them to grow long and thick. In the store’s living room, the daughters of the family will introduce hair trends from the 1930s and teach you both easier and more complicated ways to braid your hair.

Be sure to also have a look around the store to buy some sweets or try out their red drink.

Jüri-Jaagu Farm – Shrove Tuesday games and making a Metsik

On the Jüri-Jaagu courtyard, you can play old fun Shrove Tuesday games – slide around on wooden skis, pass around a hay doll called kada, and roll wooden discs representing pigs and their good health!

By the sauna, the daughters of the family will be making a Metsik – an Estonian forest god – who provides good luck for the crops and the cattle. Metsik is a hay doll that is dressed in women’s clothes one year and in men’s clothes the next. All the bad things from the past year were collected into the doll to leave it in the forest and begin the year anew.

Join us and put your ill wishes into Metsik!

Village Square – fire show

In Läänemaa, it is customary to put the hay doll on a stranger’s field or to take Metsik into a forest and tie it onto a treetop. The Germanic and Slavic people have similar hay dolls, but instead, they drown, bury, tear apart, and burn them. Fire cleanses and helps make room for the new. Fire Theatre Zerkala will arrive to send winter off and greet spring – you can see their spectacular fire show at 15.00.

Roosta Farm – linen work

According to our ancestors, those who take a long sleigh ride down a hill will grow long linen. The longer the linen plant, the nicer the fibres, resulting in spinning thinner yarn, and thus weaving better quality fabric out of it. The fabrics were sold for a large price and the household became wealthy.

The lady of the house will introduce the nine steps of linen work and the son of the family will show how to spin rope out of linen.

Kolu Tavern

The tavern offers delicious Shrove Tuesday dishes: finger-licking good ham hocks, refreshing pea soup, and semla buns (or „vastlakuklid“ in Estonian) covered in whipped cream and made using the tavern’s special recipe.

Horse ride – If there are no hills to sleigh down from, you can take a long ride on a horse carriage. If there is no snow, you can still take a „sleigh ride“ on the carriage.

Setu Farm and Peipsivene House will open their doors to show women celebrating Maslenitsa, the day before the upcoming fast, which they celebrate on February 25 (according to the old calendar).

Sponsors and partners: Usin, Zerkala Fire Theatre, Cäroly Anton, Leanne Barbo.