Green Velo

Participants of the colourful costume parades, appearing in Slawatycze in the Christmas and New Year period are unmatched anywhere in the country.

Dressed in bearded masks, heavy fur coats, straw shoes and high caps decorated with ribbons and flowers, they are a very original element of the carnival folklore. They refer to the former multicultural past of the Bug area lands in the so-called ‘Sławatycze State’, inhabited by Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and Dutch settlers from Pomerania. Every year in late December, the Sławatycze Cultural Centre co-organizes a contest for ‘Bearded Man of the Year,’ and three bearded figures stand at the town square of Sławatycze.