Kraków keeps two of Poland’s most distinctive traditions — glittering nativity scenes built as miniature versions of the city’s churches and towers, judged each December on the Main Market Square, and the Lajkonik, a bearded “Tatar” on a hobby horse who dances through town in June.
Photo: JagaKRA, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Both festivals in this atlas belong to Kraków. The tradition of the Kraków nativity scene, the szopka, was Poland’s first entry on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, in 2018. The Lajkonik parade was among the first five traditions entered on Poland’s national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2014.
Konkurs Szopek Krakowskich
On the first Thursday of December, hundreds of makers carry their szopki — nativity scenes shaped like Kraków’s churches, towers and cloth hall, glittering with foil and coloured paper — to the steps of the Mickiewicz monument on the Main Market Square to be judged.
December 3, 2026Calculated
Pochód Lajkonika
On the first Thursday after Corpus Christi, a bearded rider in a red Tatar costume, with a wooden horse around his waist, dances through Kraków with a band and an escort of “Tatars”, tapping passers-by with his mace for luck before toasting the city with the mayor.
June 3, 2027Calculated