Folklore Traditions

By: Gabriela Všolková, Český rozhlas Ostrava

In Czech Repblic you can visit about 68 folklore festivals. Bigger or smaller, all of them protect traditions and are very warmly welcome by visitors. When travelling around the small villages in Moravian regions it's not unusual to meet old ladies or even gentlemen dressed in old-fashioned folk costumes. Short skirts covering many shifts, kerchiefs on smoothly combed hair, coloured blouses with beads and embroidery. They have one set for holidays and one for working days. People like to visit open-air museums where traditions and way of life are shown in the course of the year - the carnival, sowing, Easter, harvest, harvest festival, ploughing, Christmas. Visitors can watch baking potatoes in ashes, making dried apples and pears, wool-combing, taste poppy, cheese, pear or plum jam cakes and, of course, plum brandy.

In Czech Repblic you can also meet about 385 folklore groups. Meet one of them - Valasský Vojvoda from Moravian village Kozlovice. Listen to them for the folklore of traditional music, songs, dances and drama, customs and belief, popular religion, traditional and regional food, children's folklore, traditional sayings, proverbs and rhymes. They will celebrate 35th anniversary this year.