hyyyyyyyyyyyyperborea!

The Ancient Greeks spoke of a land that lay far beyond the north wind.  This place, dubbed Hyperborea, was perfect, a veritable utopia of sunlight and happiness.  In a word, paradise.  But sadly, like Atlantis, its location was lost in time:

Never the Muse is absent

from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry

and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.

Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed

in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live...

neither by ship nor on foot would you find
the marvellous road to the assembly of the Hyperboreans.

-Pindar, Tenth Pythian Ode

But weep not, dear readers!  Through years of toil and study, I have found this mystical place!  Actually, it turns out it was just about a twenty-minute walk from my apartment.  That's right, this past weekend Petrozavodsk played host to its annual International Hyperborea Festival.  What's that?  You haven't heard?  Let me paint you a picture.  And by paint you a picture, I mean show you some pictures that I took.  The main draw is the snow and ice sculpting.  Sculptors come from all over to create frosty works of art from Petrozavodsk's most abundant renewable resource.  Unfortunately, the ice sculptors don't photograph too well, but I took pictures anyway.

This was my favorite because of its title: "Birds don't fly like people."

 It's almost as if this one was corporate sponsored...

Well, I mean sure, you have to expect a few snow fish.

But Hyperborea doesn't stop at sculptures, oh no.  In fact, it might even have a few things you wouldn't expect at a winter festival in sub-zero temperatures, like...

Horses?

Live music?

Para-sailing?

Or a giant tee-pee?

Now, you may have expected some of those things, heck maybe even most (if you're a winter festival aficionado, that is).  But no one expects a giant tee-pee.  I certainly didn't.  All in all, it made for a sort of surreal and festive atmosphere.  The only unfortunate thing was that it really was extremely cold, so I only stayed for about fifty minutes.  But hey, fifty minutes in paradise is better than no minutes in paradise.