Vegetable culture: Cucumber Festival breaks attendance records

Low—salt dances, cucumber round dances, competitions for eating speed and stomach capacity, as well as a rodeo on a green vegetable - this is how Suzdal celebrated the Cucumber Festival for the 24th time, which became an Internet meme and a favorite place for zoomers. Izvestia correspondents personally appreciated the scale of the event and tried to try all the foods that contain cucumber. The details are in our material.

How Suzdal became the cucumber capital of Russia

What every Russian has in their fridge at home is turning into a cult here in the tourist pearl of the Golden Ring. The central streets become cucumber rivers, along which people in cucumber costumes float, carrying buckets of cucumbers and chewing on them.

— In Suzdal, we don't have bread for everything, but a cucumber! — says a local resident Alexander Bryantsev. — I am ready to eat them around the clock in any form. And brine is generally the best medicine for headaches.

The cucumber here is not a joke or a marketing ploy. It has been cultivated for centuries. Back in the 18th century, the first historian of Suzdal, Ananii Fedorov, wrote that the local land was especially generous to "onions, garlic, and especially cucumbers." In the 20th century, the Suzdalians mastered the cultivation of early cucumbers under film and literally made the vegetable the local currency.

And in 2001, the staff of the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve decided: if there is a celebration of wine, cheese and tomatoes, why not arrange a cucumber festival? This is how the festival was born, which the city is holding for the 24th time. Zoomers brought him the greatest popularity, making the holiday a full-fledged Internet meme.

The prank got so out of control that in 2025 the festival gathered about 35 thousand guests in one day, so now the organizers decided not to push their luck and stretched the cucumber fun for two days.

— We can't calculate the exact number of tickets sold yet, but by the middle of Saturday alone, about 15,000 people had visited the venue. I think this year we will set a new record," Alisa Biryukova, General Director of the Vladimir—Suzdal Museum-Reserve, told Izvestia.

Not only Russians, but also tourists from all over the world are going to pick cucumbers. Kush Sonkar from India tasted pickled cucumber for the first time in Suzdal and admitted that it was a masterpiece. And Spaniard Manuel Garcia told Izvestia that he intends to bring several cans to his homeland.

— My family happened to be in Suzdal and we were very surprised that cucumbers are so popular here. In Spain, there is a tomato festival called La Tomatina. It just takes place at the end of August. We also prepare them in different ways. Now I have discovered cucumbers for myself. I'll try to pickle it myself at home," the tourist said.

Train Event: how the entertainment industry stimulates the tourist flow

Analysts have identified the top 10 cities in terms of the growth in the number of travelers due to festivals and other events

Cucumber rodeo and low-salt dancing

When you find yourself at the main venue of the festival, the Museum of Wooden Architecture, you realize that here the cucumber ceases to be a food product and turns into literally everything.

Little green men with cucumbers on their heads, smeared with green paint, run through the green meadows. Before you even know it, a two-meter-tall cucumber grabs your hand and leads you into a dance, in which a good hundred people are already spinning to the folk beats of musicians.

"We're spinning, spinning, or we'll marinate!" — the presenter shouts into the microphone.

After that, the dance breaks up, and the cucumber crowd begins to hang out in low-salt dances.

— And now the volunteers go on stage and get ready to nibble salty food at speed. But do not forget that cucumber is not a tenant in the body," the presenter continues, along the way pointing in the direction to the free toilets.

Meanwhile, in a nearby clearing, dozens of people are queuing for a vegetable rodeo. It takes about five seconds to stay on the smooth surface of a cucumber, but happiness is guaranteed for weeks ahead.

Another entertainment is cucumber tug—of-war. The rules are identical to the traditional Russian rope game. Only in the center is the main character of the day. Games were games, but the battle was to the last — so that the palms burned by the rope had to be applied to an ice-cold glass jar with lightly salted cucumbers.

There were also vintage attractions, wooden games, workshops, photo zones and a "Salting hut" at the festival. But getting into it is a separate quest. After standing in an impressive queue, you get to the local housewives, who not only shared the secrets of pickles, but also braved the guests. So, to try a cucumber according to a secret recipe, you had to sing a song about a cucumber. The only words that came to my mind were those sung by Viktor Tsoi.

By 17:00, most of the supplies had run out. Therefore, any other food products were used. I decided to try everything where there is a cucumber in the composition. I started with the classics — fresh and lightly salted. Then it started to grow: pies and pancakes with cucumbers, cucumber jam, cucumber ice cream, cucumber kvass.

Although admission to the festival costs from 1,000 to 1,500 rubles, depending on the ticket category and format, the holiday cannot be called cheap. One cucumber costs about 50 rubles, although in the city itself you can take a kilogram for 150. A small bucket of low—salt - 500, a jar of jam — 600, a bottle of cucumber kvass — 400, ice cream — 450 rubles. I even reached a bubble with cucumber mass floating on the bottom instead of juice balls, and at that moment I realized that I would no longer be able to look at cucumbers until the end of the year.