Palanga Fairy Tale Park
Since August 2016, Palanga has been home to a Lithuanian fairy tale park, which attracts visitors not only with its cozy atmosphere and playful sculptures, but also with its unusual solutions – here, you can not only “touch” fairy tales, but also hear them. The first four sculptures were unveiled in August, and six more will be added to the park later.
To ensure that this beautiful location, in a pine forest near Birutė Park and the Kupeta art and entertainment club , was to be attractive to visitors of all ages, the infrastructure was first put in order – new paths were laid, lighting was installed, and small infrastructure was provided.
The creation of the Lithuanian fairy tale park involved not only city planners, but also artists who created attractive sculptures. They had to find solutions that would combine contemporary art with centuries-old folk art.
The park features sculptures by artists Andrius Petkus (The Fox and the Jug), Algis Kasparavičius (I Follow the Fairy Tale), Gediminas Mažintas (Pupa) and Rolandas Šmitas (The Sun and the Moon), all based on Lithuanian fairy tales. Each of them can not only be admired, but also “tried out” – visitors can climb on them, turn individual parts of the sculptures or play with them in other ways. According to A. Petkus, the curator of the artistic part of this project, when creating the sculptures, great attention was paid not only to their attractiveness, but most importantly to their artistic expression.
Each sculpture has an information board where you can not only read the fairy tale, but also listen to it narrated by Inga Valinskienė by pressing a special button. For now, the stories that interest children will only be told in Lithuanian and English, but in the future, they will be recorded in several other languages.
Businesses were eager to join the municipality’s initiative to create another attractive recreational space for families, with the hotels Palanga, Kerpė, and Palangos Vėtra, the health center Energetikas, and the restaurant A-petit all contributing funds to create the sculptures.
According to Palanga Mayor Šarūnas Vaitkus, the aim of creating a Lithuanian fairy tale park was not only to offer the public, especially families with children, another attractive place to spend their free time, but also to promote Lithuanian identity – by listening to the audio recordings of fairy tales, children will become familiar with Lithuanian folk art.
Admission is free
