Records in the Medieval Sighisoara Festival
Three world records and a national one, concerts, theatre performances, medieval battle re-enactments, archery competitions, dance and minstrel music, were just some of the highlights of the 23rd Medieval Sighisoara Festival.
Newsroom, 27.07.2015, 12:36
The 23rd “Medieval Sighisoara Festival held in central Romania was one marked by three world records and a national one. The organisers intended each day of the event to set a new record, which would later be included in the Guinness Book. One of them is the Knights Colours, the largest flag ever made during a medieval festival, another is the Titans Sword, the largest ornamental sword raised in a medieval festival, and the third is the Giants Food, the largest pretzel, 20-m in diameter, made in a medieval festival. The technical manager of the festival, Dan Gliga, told us more about the Titans Sword, placed in a stone in the Medieval Citadel of Sighisoara:
“The blade itself is made of steel, and is 453 cm long and 20 cm wide. We also have the copper plates with the coats of arms; these will be fit on later. Apart from that, the handle is decorated with two wolf heads. The sword weighs 135 kilos.
According to Dan Gliga, the Titans Sword, which will be kept in the only inhabited medieval citadel in southeastern Europe, is part of a project called “Medieval Sighisoara – the first medieval festival in Romania set to break world records. On Sunday, the last day of the event, another record was broken. The traditional craftsman Vasile Ciocarlan from Neamt County made the largest traditional mask, the Healing Sorcerer, a mask measuring nearly 6 m in length and over 3 m in width.
The big parade, in which over 300 knights, princesses and troubadours from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary took part, opened the Festival, which this year had the motto “Minstrels and Troubadours – Five centuries of medieval music and theatre. For 4 days, the streets and squares of Sighisoara hosted concerts and medieval theatre performances given by 12 Romanian and Hungarian bands, 7 chivalric orders and 11 medieval theatre companies. Apart from the archery competitions and the knights battles, the princesses dance and minstrels music, a highlight of this years Festival were the medieval farces performed by the Schema Company. One of the most highly appreciated performances was “In the Suds (La Farce de cuvier, in French) based on a translation made by one of the actors, Mihai Craciun. The Sighisoara Festival brings over 20,000 Romanian and foreign visitors to the medieval citadel every year.
