It's the pumpkin season, you see these orange vegetables everywhere and pretty soon it's Halloween too, so more pumpkin is expected to show up here and there. Halloween is not so popular in my country, some celebrate it, mostly school kids. Today I'd like to show you the rest of the pumpkin decorations from Pumpkin Festival of Szováta (Sovata) I visited ten days ago.
When I heard there will be a pumpkin festival where school kids and children from kindergartens are exhibiting, I was expecting a bunch of Jack-o'-lanterns, more or less the same carving, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn I was wrong. The variety of design was absolutely amazing.These 7th graders for example let their creativity out of the bottle and showed the world what they are capable of.
There were the usual Jack-o'-lanterns too, like these, but I think these were the only ones. I loved the bandaged pumpkin of which only the eyes were left out :)
Do you like clowns and the circus? These kids do for sure. The one on the left with red hair most likely was done by someone with a lot of experience.
These guys were not joking 😁. Look at the ribbon, it says "Enter If You Dare". Then there was a black pumpkin behind the ribbon, with an axe in his head, so now you know these guys were not joking :D My favorite was the white one on the left, with so many teeth. The green one with one eye is also cool.
There are many cool ones here but having a closer look, I discovered something, a drawing on a pumpkin, that would have no place here. I'm not going to point it out, let's see if you can figure it out what I'm referring to 😂.
Here's a photo from a different angle, to help you with the detective work. I'm wondering how many noticed it at the festival as I only saw it now :D
And here's a blond lady. Her make up is a bit of a mess, but otherwise she's pretty.
A nerd hedgehog? This is really awesome, but imagine how much work went into finishing it. I like it, but I'm also glad the task wasn't allocated to me as I don't know if I would have had the patience to glue the seed on the squash one by one.
Look at these cuties. Have you ever seen a pink pumpkin? I haven't and don't even like pink, but that one is cute. The one next to it is also cool.
Look at this one 😍
A blue pumpkin guys, with a pumpkin mouse and and another pumpkin between his legs, which I'm a bit confused about and I'm going to take it as another mouse. What I loves here were the pumpkin houses.
After my last pumpkin post, a few of us decided to hold a pumpkin carving competition nest year. So far we're 3 people, 
More cute pumpkins, among which two cats and a clown.
This is a special one, as I've never seen a pumpkin train, but you will need some explanation to understand what's written on it. It's written Mocănița Sovata, referring to a train that used to transport workers from and to Sovata. This train was not like the usual ones, it was smaller and slower.
A Mocăniță is a narrow-gauge railway in Romania, most notably in Maramureș, Transylvania, and Bukovina. Archetypically, they are situated in mountainous areas and the locomotives operating on them (which themselves can also be referred to as mocănițăs) are steam-powered. These railways were built for cargo and passenger services – some in the era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before 1918 – but fell into disrepair over the years. Some are now being rehabilitated for the purposes of tourism.
The word mocăniță is a term of endearment, derived from the Romanian word mocan, meaning shepherd or one who lives in the mountains, and suffixed as feminine and diminutive in keeping with the tradition of naming conveyances and indicating small size. It's also been suggested that it means "coffee machine", as one of the little locomotives is reminiscent of one of these in action. source
Now you know why that pumpkin is special and I'm happy to see such decoration as this means the kids are keeping the past alive, even though, they may be too young to remember the Mocănița.
Minnie was there too and pay attention to that football. Look at how it is carved. Have you ever seen such a pumpkin? I haven't.
Gentlemen, if any of you are looking for a nice lady, I have one for you here 😁
Or if the lady is not for your taste, here's another one 😁
Or this pretty lady with the lovely copper red hair?
I'm not sure if I will be able to create a beauty like this next year, but this is something I'd be glad to get.
Jokes aside, this was an amazing festival and if you think of what really means for the kids, it's even better. There are similar festivals i know about, but for Christmas, where school kids and kindergartens are making Christmas decorations which are exhibited in parks and shopping malls. These events can help them develop new skills and are highly needed.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
