“Winter Tale in Uzhgorod Castle”: a series of New Year’s exhibitions

On December 6, 2019 Transcarpathian Regional Local History Museum launched the cycle of Christmas and New Year holidays "Winter Tale in Uzhgorod Castle". The staff of the history department prepared an interesting exhibition "In the glow of Christmas". 
This time, the museum invites to dive into the past of the city’s traditions of the late nineteenth – first half of the twentieth centuries through interesting exhibits that show the winter leasure of the urban population, decoration of Christmas trees, Christmas greetings in the press or postcards, holiday pastries.
The city offered more entertainment in winter than could be found in the countryside, so people would come to Uzhgorod, Mukachevo or Khust to visit a skating rink or a Christmas market.

And the winters were long and cold. Photocopies of the pictures “Theodore Romzha skiing. 1937" or "City skating rink on the Uzh river. 1926” and others are displayed along with real skis and skates from the 1930s. We will find out how the family of the famous Transcarpathian painter Fedir Manaylo decorated a Christmas tree in the 1950s, when we see old Christmas tree decorations from the artist. Visitors will be able to see the Christmas issue of the famous English and American illustrator and publisher Leslie Frank "Chimney Corner" from December 1873, or the Hungarian newspaper "Ung" from 1911 with a great article on Christmas, or the magazine "Lystok" from 1898!

Or a translation of Dickens’s "Carol" published by the Uzhgorod printing house "Novina" in 1920. Or a carol written by Simeon Silvay, son of the famous Uriel Meteor, on the back of an envelope. There are also Christmas and New Year greetings in the form of postcards from 1927 to 1944 sent to known and unknown residents of the region.

Nothing will uplift the festive mood like a fragrant Christmas pastry. With this in mind, researchers from the history department selected for the exhibition 2 old forms for gingerbread in the form of angels found by Tyvodar Lehotsky at the end of the nineteenth century. They are displayed along with recipes written by a housewife from Beregovo Lenke Nagy in the 1940s and the recipe book found in Uzhgorod in a private collection from 1909.