Tuka - Kliszczak potato harvesting

Tuka - Kliszczak potato harvesting

Tuka - Kliszczak potato harvesting

Kliszczak highlanders have met to celebrate the Tuka – traditional Kliszczak potato harvesting – for the fourteenth time this year, the event traditionally organised by Andrzej Słonina at the EcoMuseum Bogdanówka, with backing from the Municipal Centre of Culture and Sports in Tokarnia.

The tuka is a custom forgotten today: wealthier farmers would summon all neighbours to help them with potato harvesting and hold a dance for all helpers once the job was done, serving traditional potato dishes (such as kulasina – potato-based stew with onions and side of bacon), music playing until dawn. Musicians would earlier accompany everyone in the fields: whenever someone skipped a potato or threw a rotten one into his or her basket, he/she would have the funeral march played…

In this day and age, the tuka is re-enacted on the first September weekend at the EcoMuseum Bogdanówka, owing to Andrzej Słonina’s initiative. Attractions include watching an olden-days potato digging presentation, traditional dish tasting, and cheering on participants of games held between the bailiwicks of the Tokarnia municipality, all to the accompaniment of great Kliszczak music!