The Month of Nostalgic Time Travel in Sheikh Zayed Heritage Festival

As every great nation belongs to a series of historical events that have to be conserved, this biggest festival at Al-Wathba, Abu Dhabi, had brought more than 30 countries to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sheikh Zayed, founding father and leader of UAE heritage preservation.

The Entrance

Take place on a centralized design venue, there is a wide variety of heritage and cultural activities that reflect the interest of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan in the civilizations and cultures of the world. With the wide capacity of a car park and easy access from the bus stop, three main entrance from the outer layer of the venue which each of them aligns to the UAE fountain and dazzling laser show.

What really interesting as the first impression when you step your feet on the event, is that you will enter designated districts, neighborhoods that reflected the architecture of the 24 countries where the main, daily, and sports events took place.
Extraordinary events like no other.

Started your first week of main events, where you can join The Union March as a unified expression of the UAE people’s love and loyalty for their leaders. There were almost thousand of people from various tribes across all emirates involved in this march. You can also get to know the culture deeper as the spectator of the world heritage parade, a parade of various folklore groups that bring traditional folk songs from different countries. Along with the UAE fountain and laser shows to accompany the national songs experience. Moreover, don’t forget to stay as the night grow young to watch the occasional colorful fireworks shows.

Dancing Fountain

For those who are into sports, never miss out a chance to watch or join The Camel Race, the biggest race of its kind as a tradition started by the late Sheikh Zayed. This one of kind activities brought jubilation through a unique and distinctive camel and horse ride. Or are you more of a ‘hunting person’? you can join one of the most exclusive sports in UAE, Falconry Competition. Known also as ‘sport of Sheiks’. This one competition must be close to the heart of the people in all emirates as one of the legacies of the old days when people were lacking for a resource to be living in an unforgiving desert environment. All sports related events took place outside of the festival main venue. Guess that brought high concentration for the camels, right?

Being a family one-stop weekend gateway that fully historical and cultural, this festival also held many events for your kids. One of them is Fun-Fair City, a joy-filled recreation area for children with multiple games and vibrant lights illuminating a large arena. Take place on what it’s called ‘Kids Village’, children are facilitated to knowing the culture through making art, play, perform music and manage mini shops, uniquely blending childhood spirit with work values. Sheikh Zayed always is known to have a heart for young people and the important to grow a strong nationalism feel since a young age. Begin from that sense, this festival creates skill-based activities and interesting traditional kids games. One of the most interesting is Majed Chanel open cinema that gave young visitors a rare taste of how the children use their imagination.

This festival also a right place for you either you’re an artist, musician or a person who enjoy art. This will be great opportunity to exhibit your creations under the historical theme related, perform your music or simply to get all inspired by folk artist performance, street performance, art exhibitions and various workshops.

Performance From Rusia

Time warp
This festival main vision is to bring history and tradition of old UAE and blend it with modern culture to enrich people from all kind of generations about their own culture and how it stands in the modern world. Memories of a Nation is one of the interactive exhibitions where you can soak all the fond stories of a diversity of attractions celebrating Sheikh Zayed’s glorious legacy on the UAE’s evolution and displaying rare union documents. As a commemorate of how Sheikh Zayed widely support of farmers and agricultural growth, they exhibit immersive display of agriculture and palm-tree related industries transformation. Those interactive exhibitions we can watch is all about time travel to the old time of living in UAE, like this old house museum as recreational of a traditional Emirati home, they also display rooms and majlis echoing old Emirati architecture that passionately preserved by old leaders. Also, the special greyhound exhibition, a visual history of The Saluki. Saluki also was known as Persian Greyhound or Tazi is a long-legged dog historically used for hunting by nomadic tribes of Persia.

Military Marching Band

On the festival ground, every 4.00 pm until 10.00 pm you can watch a traditional military marching band, a nostalgic reflection of the Emirates proud military history, featuring a marching band in immaculate old military uniform playing traditional military beats, such an experience!
 

India Pavilion

Challenge yourself with enthralling competitions.
The various fascinating competition that will tickle your competitive nose in a way. Take camel milking and camel push challenge, dare yourself to be the most person speak with heart with this favorite animal of Emirati land and also a symbol of a desert-survivor being. They pre-historic existence on earth surely make them a special creature being part of this special festival. There is also a horse riding competition entitled Sheikh Mansour Arabian Horse festival price which took place at Emirates stage throughout the evening. What if you’re a lady who is more fascinated by cooking and culinary stuff? There is also a traditional cooking competition for you at UAE kitchen area.
Culinary Experience with many choices of restaurants and cafes
After enjoying exploration of the events don’t forget to spoil your tummy by various foods and beverages from local and around the world countries. There is a wide range variety of culinary choice from traditional to international cuisine. You can choose a nice seat in a resto or take away fast food from food trucks. The festival offers a great experience for savoring the finest national and international traditional dishes as well as a wide range of fast food restaurants

The important message
In this modern and high technology era, it is important to not forget the root of your culture, to preserve the tradition and respect the late elder fought for the countries. This festival would like to enrich you with all kind of nationalism feeling towards the country and especially to always flourish what Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of UAE have in mind about what a great country should be. Even if we’re coming from outside of the Emirates, we can gain important bits of knowledge about historical aspects of great nations and countries. It was like a rare experience you will encounter and more than what you ask for your regular vacation. Then again, traveling, always a life-changing experience in so many ways.