Creative Cows Invade Salzburg |
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Yes, it's true, Salzburg, Austria, provided already the fourth downtown pasture to offer an open-air cow moo-seum, but it is the smallest city with the biggest display! Before Salzburg there were Zürich, Switzerland, then Chicago and New York in the USA.It was a sheer cow-incidence that I arrived in Salzburg on August 1, 2000, the opening session of the cow-munication. I hadn't come there for the cows, but to celebrate my father's 80th birthday on August 8. Nevertheless, my family and I were delighted to discover that Salzburg had been taken over by almost 150 cows and one bull. It was a welcome change of scenery after we had just endured 100 Snoopies at home in Saint Paul. Also the cows came in three life-size varieties: as the lying, the staring, and the grazing breed (see pictures below). The molds were designed by a sculptor from New York.  |
The cows were financed solely by private industry, and very creatively decorated and painted by a combination of hobby & professional artists, school children, and even the onlookers themselves. Every cow had a special theme and a sometimes very funny and interesting name, all creating a lot of different associations and emotions.
The only bull stood high up at the Salzburg fortress Hohensalzburg. It goes back to an old story about the Salzburger Stierwascher (bull washers) when the royal citizens of Salzburg won the Bauernkrieg (war of the farmers) in the 16th century: 
... hiding safely in the fortress, the citizens painted their only bull in a slightly different color every day and showed it to the enemy to lead them to believe that they had enough food to endure a long siege. After the enemy left in dismay, the bull was washed clean in the Salzach river as part of the victory celebration. From that time on the Salzburgers were called bull washers. |
(pictured above: my daughter with her namesake cow "the beautiful Helena")
Why cows? For one to show the importance of the local milk industry in Salzburg's agriculture and overall economy: as of 1999, the small province of Salzburg had 6000 milk producing cattle farmers. And the quality of the raw milk is very high.
Also, cows are popular! Cattle are one of the oldest domestic animals, first domesticated about 6000 BC, as science reports.
You can see many more cow pictures of this exhibit on the Internet. Moo!
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