Later, in the 70's and 80's the local Blue Danube Co-Operative Farm bought up the popular fruit by the ton. Today there are merely a dozen full-time strawberry farmers left, but almost every family in the village grows strawberries on a bigger or smaller strip of land.

With the Strawberry Festival, we want to show our appreciation of strawberry farmers, our respect for the traditions and also preserve our values. We dreamt of an event that connects strawberry farmers with customers, the locals with visitors, and which gives an opportunity to the villagers to enjoy themselves and to relax together. With regard to this, the first Strawberry Festival took place in 1999.

The popular event, which has quite a long tradition by now, draws fifteen to twenty thousand visitors year by year. Apart from the locals and nearby village dwellers more and more visitors come from the capital and from abroad.

The opening event of the Festival each year is an exciting swirl, the procession of the strawberry farmers. The line of horse carts decorated with strawberry girdles and nicely decked strawberry chests full of strawberries and a long line of horsemen following them arrives to the festival location crossing the entire village on the way.

Hundreds of kilograms of strawberries used in decorationg are distributed among the onlookers as soon as the procession arrives at the festival's location. This gift of the farmers makes everybody very happy. We first cooked a large amount of strawberry jam at the festival in 2005, and it was a huge success, more than 1200 jars of jam were bought by the festival's guests. Apart from concerts and other events there was room for culture too.

In 2005 strawberry was the motif of the glaze ware exhibition of a nationwide competition for students. In 2006 there was a basket exhibition showing the past and present of strawberry production, which made the Festival even more colourful. Strawberry production was also discussed in professional circles. At the Strawberry Farmers Conference, lectures by professionals in strawberry production were well received by the farmers as well as the enquirers and there was a produce display as well.

Apart from the above mentioned strawberry events, we have taken care of the guests by organising sports tournaments, shows, open markets, children's programmes, concerts, operetta evenings, competitions and countless other kinds of programmes on the big stage and in the tents of the festival.

You and your family are warmly welcome each year at the beginning of June to the most prestigious event of the Danube Bend.

The locals of Tahitótfalu, strawberry farmers, my organising colleagues and myself hope to see you there!

János Tóth, notary - chief organiser

How to get there

Source: tahitóthfalu.hu

Programme of the event (in Hungarian): eperfesztival.eu