Saturday, January 21, 2012

Fire and Ice



It is well known that the Estonians are not terribly religious people, unless you count maausk, or earth beliefs. They were among the last in Europe to adopt Christianity, and the presence of paganism after a fashion is still very real here.

This was pretty obvious at the Fire and Ice Festival tonight.

After Christmas, Estonians gather all the dead Christmas trees, and artists use them to construct huge sculptures. Then, they set the sculptures on fire in Toompea park against the backdrop of the frozen pond and snow covered park and the beating of drums.

The scuplture above is a dragon. Others were small buildings with rotating interiors or abstract pieces. You can see from the people near by that these were huge sculptures...they lit up the night sky.

Pretty awesome.


3 comments:

Nomads By Nature said...

Now that is pretty darn cool!

Mochi said...

wow! with the last photo!

Mochi said...

wow! with the last photo!