“Unspunnenfest”: 200th jubilee of a festival that
gave a boost to tourism
By Georg Hoffmann (text) and Danna Levy-Hoffmann (photos)
Posted September 15, 2006
Alpine
Wrestlers, stone throwers, alpenhorn players, yodelers and folk
dancers cherished from the past. Thousands of Swiss from all
regions of the country, most of them in traditional costumes,
gathered in Interlaken, Switzerland from September 1 to 3.
According to the organizers, an estimated 120,000 people were
amongst the participants who celebrated the three-day Unspunnen
Festival in its 200th jubilee. “It was a superlative
weekend," said visibly happy, although
tired, president Ueli Bettler after the successful event.
Most
importantly, this year the weather made up for its bad behavior
in August 2005. The traditional festival should have been
celebrated last year but storms and flooding hit the resort of
the Bernese Oberland and forced the organizers to postpone the
event.
In 1805, the
traditional costume and alpine herdsmen festival was held for
the first time. Bernese aristocrats are believed to have
organized the event in order to close the rift between town and
country. Supposedly it was an attempt to better integrate the
people from the Bernese Oberland into the canton. Previously,
the country dwellers had rebelled because they felt
underrepresented in the cantonal parliament. “We still need the
spirit of Unspunnen nowadays. It is about listening to each
other in days when gaps open again in society”, Federal
Counselor Samuel Schmid reminded during his visit.
Another goal
of the festival is the preservation of Swiss folklore for future
generations. And of course, it sells. While political goals were
not achieved immediately, the festival gave a huge boots to
tourism in the Bernese Oberland 200 years ago. According to
Interlaken Tourism, figures are still good these days, although
the markets have changed. Despite the flood, the annual report
of the tourism organization counted 709,095 overnight stays in
the hotels of the resort and its surrounding villages (an area
of 15,000 inhabitants) in 2005. Almost as much as in the record
year of 2004. For 2006 there should be another increase, also
thanks to the Unspunnen Festival.
The sound of
folk music still echoes throughout the streets of Interlaken -
streets where you find not only tourists from Europe and America
these days, but also a surge in folks from the Middle and Far
East.
For more
information on the Unspunnenfest go to
www.unspunnenfest.ch
For more impressions contact also
www.bildundtext.net
Georg Hoffmann and Danna Levy-Hoffmann are Switzerland based
freelance journalists who lived in Israel and the U.S.
©
2006 All content property of European Weekly unless where otherwise
accredited
