© 1999 VNN
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EUROPE July 25, 1999 VNN4363 Comment on this story Return To Trzbietow BY PRAHLADA DAS POLAND, Jul 25 (VNN) — Dear Vaisnava's and Vaisnavi's, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. The 3rd and 4th festivals of our summer tour were held in Trzbietow. Trizbietow is the place where the Laksmi Nrisimha Tour did it's first ever outdoors festival 7 years ago. The way the summer tour is organised is that we invite nama hatta devotees around the country to spend their summer vacation with us. We rent large schools as bases and stay in, each one for several weeks. Each summer our first school base has always been in a small town called Trzbietow. Our first year there was in 1993, we decided not to have a festival there because the town is too small and there aren't many people compared to the beach towns. But the people protesed, "You are staying in our town so you have to do a festival for us too!" So two days before we left the town to move on to our 2nd base, we did a harinama through Trsbietow to invite the pople to the school where we were staying for a small Hare Krsna festival. The next evening they came by the hundreds to the school gymnasium which we had advertised as the venue. But it soon became apparent that the gym was too small, we moved the festival outside to a grass field so that everyone could see. It was beautiful - a completly different mood from our standard "indoor" festivals. Outside everyone is relaxed and chearful. It was the beginning of our "outdoor" programs that have proved so successful since then. In 1994 we invited the people to the school again. An even larger crowd came, this year we had an additional feature to our program, the reggae concert. For a couple of hours the people danced. In 1995 we found a better, bigger school in nearby village so we didn't go to Trzbietow. Only some sankirtana devotees went there to distribute books. They came back with a report that some of the people were complaining that we had neglected them by not staying in their school or doing a festival for them. They were angry that our tour was favoring another town. Later we actually found out that the subject of our festival was a hot topic of discussion in a hundred's of years old rivelry between the two towns! In 1996 when we were again staying in another village, the lady from the house of culture in Trzbietow came to see us and on behalf of all the citzens in Trzbietow begged that we please come and do a festival there again. They arranged a beautiful site for us in the front garden of an old restored palace and several tousand poeple came. That was the begining of a tradition - for since then we have done a festival every summer in Trzbietow. And each year the crowd gets even bigger! After the festival the lady who is director of cultural events in the town ( and a devout Catholic ) told us that she had been praying all day to the "Holy Ghost" to disperse the clouds that hovered over the festival all day ... but never let loose even a single drop of rain. Your servant, Sri Prahlada das Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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