28-30 July 2017, Sighisoara Citadel. Medieval Fair – the horses, the knights, the dances and the fights; from streets to walls to clothing, everything in Sighisoara has travelled back in time last weekend.
The Medieval Festival of Sighisoara (Festivalul Sighisoara Medievala) is held every last weekend of July in the beautiful setting of the old Citadel. This is the biggest and most important Medieval Fair in Romania. People from all around the country, as well as tourists, have crowded the streets and the squares of this beautiful city to enjoy the charming, creeping atmosphere of the Dark Ages.
The three-day event was articulated in ten sections: theatre, music, art, exhibition, film, dance, book exhibition, concerts to the youth and conferences of different subjects. Besides all of this, of course, street clambakes, night concerts, choir-music, middle-age dances and dresses have animated and entertained the many people who had come to visit.
It is amongst all this that the volunteers of Wild Carpathia took up armor, shields, and swords, to offer to our youngest friends the opportunity to go back in time too.
Kinderland, volunteering project counting 8 wonderful people from Greece, Estonia, Macedonia and Italy, is committed to offering fun activities and educational entertainment to the tiny humans here in Romania. With their activity facilitator Flori, the volunteers of Kinderland work hard every day to give their best to the kids. In the occasion of the Medieval Festival, our volunteers have become knights and princesses; they have organised tournaments, duels and fights that put a smile on every kid’s face (and on their own faces too).
Every afternoon from 5 to 8, every kid who walked by got the chance to be a knight and fight for someone’s honor; with horses, swords or hands, the fights were fierce and felt – and, it grieves me admit, often resulted in the defeat of our team volunteers.
It is amazing what balloon swords, rustled up capes, and stuffed horses can do, when combined with a child’s imagination and with the flowing, positive energy of our not-so-grownup team of big-sized kids. While the children had the opportunity to have fun, enjoy their time, and also play a part in some of that Medieval atmosphere, our volunteers too, always renewed and energised by the closeness and connection with the kids, have been enriched by the experience and added something more personal to the Medieval Fair for which they were supposed to be spectators.
Always proud of the good work and grateful for yesterday’s achievements, Wild Carpathia here stays Medieval for a little longer and salutes you with a Latin locution: “Ad maiora!” which, in vulgar, translates as “towards greater things”. We hope to see you there too.
The volunteers of Wild Carpathia.
Pictures by: Daina Laizane, Sanja Jovanovic, Michaela Sergi
Article by: Michaela Sergi
