Norwich's taste of Baltic culture
Colourful crafts, lively sounds and unique fashion were on show at the weekend for those visiting Norfolk's first festival celebrating Baltic culture.The sounds of fiddles and bagpipes weaved into traditional folk music filled the Forum in Norwich as dozens of performers and dignitaries from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania took part in the Baltic States Festival.
Colourful crafts, lively sounds and unique fashion were on show at the weekend for those visiting Norfolk's first festival celebrating Baltic culture.
The sounds of fiddles and bagpipes weaved into traditional folk music filled the Forum in Norwich as dozens of performers and dignitaries from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania took part in the Baltic States Festival.
The free event was put together to celebrate the culture of people from the three countries who have now settled in Norfolk.
With more than 1,000 Lithuanians living in Norwich alone, the festival was organised by Norwich MIND and the BBC Voices Project, in co-ordination with the Lithuanian Association, in a bid to showcase their culture.
During the day handcrafts including ceramics, weaving and wood designs were on display and an evening of fashion, theatre and music attracted hundreds of people.
Musicians who travelled to Norwich include young bagpiper Catlin Jaago, from Estonia, and one of the country's best fiddle players, Sille Ilves.
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And Lithuanians living in Norfolk strutted down the catwalk, dressed in the latest designs from two young Lithuanian fashion designers.
Audrone Strasauskiene from the Lithuanian Association's Norwich branch said: “We have many beautiful girls and many good-looking men from Lithuania living here in Norfolk and this is a chance for them to show off.”
