Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple

A close up view of the temple, all pics sourced from the wiki page.

Utah has long been synonymous with Mormonism, and with good reason. You simply cannot discuss the history of the state without at least having a passing familiarity with it. It's like trying to discuss the history of Rome in the past few hundred years without discussing Catholicism. That having been said, it does make me laugh when butthurt people complain about Utah history teachers when they talk about Mormons in classes about Utah history.

Anyways, we aren't here to talk about that, but rather another popular religious institution that is pretty well celebrated in Utah, the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple.

The place was built relatively recently in 1998 in part by a man named Charu Das who was inspired to do so when visiting BYU in the 70s. The place is for International Society for Krishna Consciousness (also known as Hare Krishnas/Hindus), and is built with a traditional Indian temple style, and includes an animal park, and a large natural amphitheater as well. It is often open for art displays, has regular tours, as well as a gift shop, and you can check their schedule on their official site.

Most famously though is the fact that the temple is host to The Holi Festival, known to most as the Festival of Colors and is one of the largest (if not THE largest) held in the western world. Theologically, it is to celebrates the eternal and divine love of Radha Krishna as well as the triumph of good over evil. There is a bot more to it that that, but you can check out the rest on the Wikipedia page. 

The festival is famous for the paint powder that is thrown at each other by participants, but is also host to an animal park, a vegetarian buffet, as well as something called the Sunday Love Feast.

A pic of the festival of colors in action back in 2013.