43
German Oktoberfest comes to the Mahoning Valley
Gallery
Oktoberfest Youngstown 2014
Video
Oktoberfest Youngstown 2014 featured ethnic music, food and drink.
LIBERTY
Walking into the Oktoberfest Youngstown tent, patrons may have thought they had entered a Munich beer hall.
Polka music played, the aroma of bratwursts filled the air, and many a beer stein was emptied over the weekend.
Not only did Oktoberfest Youngstown, which ran from Saturday and Sunday, have all the authentic elements of the German celebration, it also was something one cannot normally find in the Mahoning Valley.
In a region of many festivals — Greek, Slovak, Spanish, Italian — the event was the first German Oktoberfest in the area, for many years at least.
And that is why Aundrea Cika Heschmeyer started it.
“I was shocked there wasn’t one. Oktoberfest has become the fall bookend for festivals in many cities,” she said. “We’re trying to bring that to Youngstown.”
“We’d like to create a new Columbus Day tradition, and be the last festival of the year,” she said.
The event took place in a tent in the parking lot of Colonial Plaza, near Kravitz Deli, 3135 Belmont Ave., the presenting sponsor of the event.
Jack Kravitz of Kravitz Deli said he got involved with the event because its fits with the new direction his business has taken in recent years.
“Part of our mission has become much multi-ethnic,” he said. “Youngstown is very multi-cultural, and it’s great to bring everyone together.”
Kravitz said the Jewish community of Youngstown has shrunk over the years, so he has gotten involved in other ethnic and cultural traditions in the area.
Kravitz Deli provided the food, which included stuffed cabbage, beer-braised bratwurst with kraut, potato pancakes, schnitzel, braised red cabbage, German potato salad, Reubens, sandwiches on pretzel buns, pretzels, strudel, cream puffs, cookies, brownies, kipfel and rye bread.
Paulaner, a German brewery, provided beer and decorated the tent to look like a Munich beer hall.
The event included activities such as beer stein races and one contest in which participants had to hold up a full stein for as long as they could.
Saturday’s female winner was Adele Cisine, 70, of Liberty, who beat out her much-younger competition, she thinks, because she is strong from always holding her grandchildren.
Cisine was born in Bavaria and said Saxon traditions have always been important in her life.
“I’m glad it’s here,” she said of the new Oktoberfest.
One of her favorite parts of Oktoberfest Youngstown was the music and dancing, she said.
A jazz combo, German polka musician Alex Meixner, local band Eintracht, a Saxon band, and others, played live music throughout the weekend.
“It’s about the ethnicity. It’s about holding onto the heritage my parents brought over,” said Mike Bachinger, one of the founding members of the Saxon band of the Youngstown Saxon Culture Group that played.
The band started in 1969, and Bachinger said it is the only one of its kind left in the United States today.
People could also purchase traditional Oktoberfest attire, lederhosen and dirndl dresses, from a vendor in the tent.
Another feature of the event was the “Ger-Man Cave”, where couches and televisions were set up so people could watch football.
Kravitz said turnout for Oktoberfest Youngstown wasn’t quite what the organizers had hoped, but that a few thousand people came, and that Saturday was a big success.
The proceeds from Oktoberfest Youngstown will go to the local branch of the Autism Society of Ohio, for which Cika Heschmeyer is the director.
The director of the Autism Society of Ohio, Dean Pulliam, said all the money from the event will be used to support programs and services for families in the Valley who have children with autism.