Raebechilbi Richterswil 2009 (Turnip Festival)

Turnip Lanterns at Tabebechilbi Festival

This Saturday night marked the Raebechilibi festival in Richterswil. The annual festival is a celebration for the local community to carve turnips and put tea lights in them. A similar tradition to the American pumpkin carving around Halloween I suppose.

The center piece of the festival is parade for the children to carry their carved turnips through the streets of the town. During the parade all the local homes and shops display thousands of carved turnips, each one glowing brightly. Literally every windowsill and roof awning is lined with hundreds of glowing turnips.

Just before the parade starts all the locals are up on ladders lighting the candles that have been set out during the day. It was really amazing to see all the glowing veggies as a loud cannon sounded and all the street lights in the city were cut to announce the beginning of the parade.

In addition to the children carrying there personal turnips, often hanging by strings from a stick some local community groups also created enormous parade floats for the celebration.

The floats themselves were often times nothing more than huge boards strapped to farm wagons. The boards had pictures painted on them in black and white and then hand hundreds of turnips with candles afixed to the white parts.

As is always the case with such festivals many of the floats were political or were representative of recent news. There was one celebration Bolts news world record for the 100 m sprint, 9.58 s. There was a tribute to Michael Jackson. There were two tributes to Snoopy. I don't know what that was about but maybe someone else knows.



One local cultural custom that I can not get over in Switzerland is that fact that they charge and entrance fee to attend parades. I am used to parades being free. You line up in the street and watch the floats and bands go by. Here there is a little bit different mentality here. As we got off of the train we were confronted by hordes of people selling plackets as then call them here. These are little trinkets or medallions on a string that you are supposed to buy and hang around your neck indicating you paid the obligatory 6 Francs to stand in the street.

I have never really seen anybody checking for these medallions, most Swiss are very good about following the rules. However, this time as were were standing waiting for the parade in the drizzle there was a women walking the parade route and checking that everyone had there placket. If you didn't have one she would be happy to sell you one.

This year the parade started around 6:30 and lasted about 1 hour. There were some food booths and hot drinks available as well. It was definitely worth the trip if you are close to Zurich and looking for something a little out of the ordinary.