Street Music Day

I've never seen Vilnius so full of young people, on a sunny almost summer weekend, and a long one at that - usually Vilnius is dead on such occasions. It was brilliant!

The reason? It was the third street music day (first Saturday in May) where anyone who wanted to could take their instrument and perform outside. So, ok, there was a lot of amplified band music everywhere (I wondered about the band playing outside St Catherine's church just before an a capella choir started singing inside it), but there were also other little groups; a trio of girls playing the kanklas (a kind of zither), some folks from the countryside with violins and accordeons, a sad little family group who you could see performing, but who were drowned out by the band beside them. But it was really nice to see the town so busy - and I am sure, whether you see this as culture or not, that quite a lot of cash registers in town may have been quite busy. It would be nice if someone measured this increase in revenue, to prove the benefits of culture to the economy.