Toys Fair 1-4 June 2023
ASTRA Museum, an institution whose actions are made possible by the funding of Sibiu County Council, organizes the 16th edition of the Toys Fair. It is an initiative that offers both children and adults the opportunity to enjoy toys, games and crafts in an active and sustainable way. The programme includes demonstration workshops, such as pottery, or where visitors can learn how to make a wool quilt or make puppets and wooden toys. This year's Toys Fair features 29 folk craftsmen from Romania and Moldova.
"This edition aims to attract children and adults to nature and to the means we can contribute to its protection. "About bees and beehives" and "About fish and fishermen" will be told in our workshops open to the public. We will taste honey of different varieties, make wax candles and meet Michael, our character from The Little Fisherman, who will teach us about sport fishing. We'll also be making bathtubs out of wool and fish out of paper. In the same setting, the rural teacher will be preparing a journey into the mysteries of education in the past, seen through the eyes of today's children, as well as a series of slide shows that you can watch in the classroom of the Ticera School. There will also be storytelling workshops with easel painting, a story-based activity that helps us discover the museum more easily. With the help of painting plates we will illustrate 3 farms and 2 installations included in the story of the Detoured Path: the Horezu Farmhouse, the House of the Millwright, the Căciulata Mill, the Windmill with sails, the Găleșoaia Farmhouse. Each plate will be accompanied by a QR code containing short texts from the story, read by the author himself. And because nature is full of sounds, this year we will have three musical performances - interactive and movement shows: The Duel of Instruments, Music from Cartoons and Beethoven's Childhood - a show that tells the story of the man who would enrich the universal treasury of classical music both through his great symphonies, sonatas and concertos for violin and piano, and through a new technical musical process: the variation on a given theme.Diversity and creativity go hand in hand, and the theatre performance African Stories will delight us with interactive moments, a journey into the world of stories whose language is universal", said Raluca Andrei, head of the ASTRA Museum's Heritage Education and Interpretation Department.
For sports lovers, there will be a new obstacle course in the Toys Fair programme. Trail markings will be set up on the route through the forest to help those interested to recognise the symbols and thus find their way around the course. We will also be holding workshops on making trail markings at the fair.
At this edition of the Toys Fair, we will have for the first time, a special gastronomic component, suggestively named "Tastes of Childhood". Thus, at the Country Fair in the open-air museum in Dumbrava Sibiului, there will be 3 hearths with 15 bacon frying places and 3 tables for preparing traditional dishes from childhood.
"The message is linked to the tastes of childhood, it is addressed to both children and adults and we will be present with suggestive explanations while preparing the dishes. Bacon, for example, was used a lot during this period because it gave heat and melted, and when working in the fields it was roasted in the pot with harder pita and green onions from the garden. New potatoes appeared, a delight to our childhood, fried in butter with green salad and mujdei. As there were still bits of telema cheese in the putina, it was grated on top of the potatoes. Talk about a culinary delight from a fairytale childhood! I will personally take care of the preparation of these "tastes" from my childhood", said Ciprian Ștefan, manager of the ASTRA Museum.
On June 1st, on their birthday, all children up to the age of 14, have free admission to the ASTRA Museum.
