Shrove Tuesday (Užgavėnės in Lithuanian) is a celebration that is held just before the beginning of the Christian liturgical season of Lent. Shrove Tuesday is celebrated on the 46th day before Easter. While considered a Christian tradition, this holiday, in fact, dates as far back as the pagan times, when it was celebrated to mark the end of winter. Užgavėnės is also the last opportunity for Catholics to enjoy a substantial meal, before the Lent, a time of abstinence, comes.

A time for merry-making, Užgavėnės in Lithuania is celebrated with games, dancing and other revelries. The traditional element of the feast is driving the winter away by burning Morė, a huge doll symbolizing winter. Scores of joyful and frightening characters in masques gather to bid farewell to winter and welcome spring.

There are three key figures at the Lithuanian Shrove Tuesday Festival: More, Kanapinis and Lašininis. Morė is a big woman effigy, usually made of some parts of a sled, a wooden wheel, hey, multi-colored drapery and ribbons. Morė is carried through the whole town by a crowd of joyful creatures, standing for her court. At the end of the holiday, Morė is burned on a big bonfire, with everyone dancing around it and shouting for the winter to get away from the yard. This ritual symbolizes the revival of nature and awakening of the human spirit.
Lašininis (a Porker) is a stout character, representing winter and lavish meal. His antipode is Kanapinis (a Hempen Man), a skinny figure, impersonating spring and the forthcoming Lent. One of the most fascinating moments of the festival is the theatricalized fight between Lašininis and Kanapinas, which is always won by the latter, meaning that the spring is about to come into its own, and so is the Lent.There is no Užgavėnės without maskers. People commonly dress as devils, witches, Gypsies, brides and bridegrooms, horses, goats, etc. Their main purpose on that day is to visit as many neighbours’ homes as possible, demanding alms, in return for which special rhymes, referring mainly to food, are chanted and good wishes for the coming year are offered to the hosts. Having burned More on the bonfire, the crowd of masquers does not break up – they are supposed to put together all the food they have collected when begging and to celebrate till the morning hours, dancing, singing and eating properly.
Traditionally, it is the last day for Catholics to indulge themselves with delicious food before the Lent. Because people are expected to refrain from such products as milk, eggs, meat, fat during the Lent, they try to use up all the remains of this food on the Shrove Tuesday. Just as in many other countries, it is pancakes which is the most customary dish on that day, because they are made using most of the ingredients which will not be permitted when keeping the fast. Although many people do not observe the Lent, eating pancakes on the Užgavėnės has become a matter of habit for them.

This year, Shrovetide is celebrated on February 1-2. You are most welcome to spend this holiday in our country. The ShrovetideFestival is held in Vilnius courtyards and parks (for example, in Sereikiškių park), as well as in other Lithuania cities, towns and villages. One of the most popular places to celebrate Shrovetide is The Open Air Museum of Lithuania in Rumšiškės, were a great many visitors gather to take part in the spring farewell revelry.

During Shrovetide, the most stormy holiday of the year, the museum, like the villages in the ancient times, is full of humour, superstitions, songs and dances, masks, jokes, roar, scream ... The whole museum this day smells sweet with smoked or baked meat, pancakes, cakes, sausages, hams etc. Traditionally the participants of celebrating Shrovetide are enjoying themselves, every visitor can find in the museum something interesting or nice, according to their wish or wealth. Nobody can take offence if somebody masked will knock him/her down and roll in the snow.

The culmination of the holiday is the theatricalised violent fight between Lašininis and Kanapinis which is always won by the latter, meaning that the spring is about to come. The holiday ends with the burning of More, a huge, 5-7 m of height doll, symbolizing evil and winter. All people, masked or no, standing on the hills around More are shouting: “Žeima žeima, biek iš keima” – “winter, winter , go away from the yard” – for the winter to get away from the yard.
After driving the winter away the participants of the celebration are looking forward to the next, nice spring holiday – Easter !

February 3, Sunday

12:00 Beginning of „Shrovetide 2008“.
Carnivals and concerts-improvisations of people in disguise in the homesteads/farmsteads and by the roadsides.
Show/display and production of traditional masks in the roadside inn.
Sport games in front of Suvalkija farmstead.
Riding horses.
Swings and roundabouts/whirligigs.
Show and sale of the masks in the Town square.

14:00 Parade of masks in the Town Square.

15:00 Bonfire for More – a symbol of winter and evil.