Climate change halts Swiss winter festival in which single males fling flaming discs at their village in a declaration of love
- ‘Disc hitting’ is a popular annual event in Untervaz but climate change has seen the 2023 event cancelled, after a reduced celebration in 2022
- The curious festival is not marketed for tourism purposes, but represents a genuine coming together of the community for celebration – and a few knowing looks
The small mountain community of Untervaz, in the southeast Swiss canton of Graubünden, is in a state of gloom.
This year, the traditional annual winter-banishing festival, known in the local dialect as Schibaschlaha, or “disc hitting” – which was once widely enjoyed in Switzerland but is now preserved mainly in this village of around 2,500 people – was cancelled.
There was some grumbling, Untervaz mayor René Vogel says, but most villagers recognised that no other decision could be taken.
The landscape was neither of an undulating soft whiteness nor seriously soggy as it should have been, and an on-site inspection by the fire brigade confirmed that the risk of forest fires was just too great.
In the evening of the first Sunday in Lent every year (February 26 in 2023), the single males of the village, from young boys chaperoned by their fathers up to men in their twenties or even older, dress in the traditional costume of red and white, likely sewn by their grandmothers from bedsheets.
