Straw Giants at the annual Wara Festival in Japan

Each autumn B Japan marks the collection of one of the favorite grains of Asia – rice. Rice grains serve for a huge variety of products, while the remaining waste in the form of straws found an application as a material for giant sculptures.

After each collection of cereals, there is a huge amount of waste (rice hay), which local residents call Vara. Most of the hay leaves for the feed and soil fertilizer, and only in the authorskigat park it is used to create giant animal sculptures.

Huge straw sculptures can be seen during the annual festival "Vara", which is held in the Uvsexigat Park for more than 10 years.

In honor of the anniversary, the organizers decided to make sculptures even more than previously. So that they are stable, a special wooden frame is created.

The tradition of creating straw sculptures was formed in 2008. Niigata’s farmers team received permission to the municipality for the use of unnecessary straw as a material for the construction of straw animals.

After the festival became interested foreigners, to the creation of the sculptures began to attract students of the local University of the Arts.

At the exhibition you can see the straw lions, giant gorillas, huge rhinos and crocodiles. Sculptures look so beautiful and fabulously that at the time of the festival, hundreds of tourists from all over the world come here.

In 2017, sculptures from straw can be seen until October 31. After that, they will be disassembled and will be allowed on animals.