Ilgaplaukė Panevėžys 2017 was the sixth consecutive long hair competition held in the city of Panevėžys, although this was the first time I learned of its existence, so I decided to attend.
I found myself among a gathering of 65 participants, mostly children aged 6 to 14, during a Christmas market in the Kalnapilio sports arena just outside the city centre. The organiser of the competition, the director of the "Grožio mozaika" dance studio in Panevėžys, said it was a pity that almost no senior citizens had taken part, which was the case at last year's competition, where even an 80-year-old woman came on stage to have her hair measured! But the number of female participants was apparently record-breaking. Not only local girls entered, but also girls from the Aukštaitija region, which includes the north-eastern part of Lithuania and small parts of Belarus and Latvia.
All participants were called on stage to make a 'sea of hair', similar to the tradition at the Pasaulio Ilgaplaukės competition in Kaunas, where they wave their hair at the same time so that it looks like a flowing stream.
The girls then took to the stage one after the other to show off their hair and have it measured. They were supposed to wear carnival costumes, including some creepy looking domino masks, but okay, that was the dress code.
At the prize-giving ceremony, everyone took off their masks and the winner was - hardly surprising - Ugnės Lasmanavičiūtės with a hair length of 140 cm, the only senior in the competition who had taken part in the Pasaulio Ilgaplaukes competition two weeks ago.
A review in Lithuanian and some more pictures can be found here
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