Szopki
(shop-kee)
The Fanciful Krakow Christmas Cribs

Each year the City of Krakow, a town that was Poland's ancient capital city, a competition is held - open to all - for the creation of the most fanciful Christmas Crib.

In 1997, picking up on that tradition, the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University in Lewiston NY and the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo co-sponsored.a creative szopka building competition for both children and adults. The website was created for the competition. It features a gallery of szopka images, the rules of the competition, Historical & Construction Highlights, the criteria used in judging the entries, and background information sources. To provide potential szopka builders and organizations that might wish to sponsor future szopka competitions with the relevant information, the Polish Academic Information Center is reproducing the website that was created in 1997.TTTTTTTTTTTT