Christmas in Bucovina (VIDEO)
By Diana Ungureanu/ Chisinau / Moldova.ORG/ -- It is beautiful Europe on holidays, but it is more beautiful and cherished Christmas atmosphere on ancestral lands.
The hot dishes, the cream that flows in waves on traditional dishes, mulled wine that warms your frozen soul, the mountain peaks, the snow that lasts for days and warm wishes of carol singers – all these you cannot find on any European capital, but only here, not so far, in Bucovina.
Fitting up for holidays in this area starts early, with returning of borrowed things, because the tradition says that it is not good to have borrowed things on Christmas.
Carol singers begin the rehearsals for the great Christmas night even before the Advent. In Bucovina, the caroling is not only a tradition, but by the organization, it became a real institution, with specific laws and rules. Children and youth meet in advance, in groups of 6 persons for the future composition of the bands, the selection being made according to social class, personal affinities, moral qualities and degrees of kinship. Also beforehand, it is chosen the leader – named vataf, journeyman or Turk – who must be a good organizer, have an authority over the youth, an irreproachable moral behavior and to be a good dancer.
In some localities, with the bands of carol singers, there also go masked bands – “old men and women” – that through play, gestures and dialog forward their own vision about the principle of fertility.
After the carols made their night pilgrimage, people consider that winter holidays started.
Another household duty, usually prepared by housewives, is the Christmas Eve table that must contain no more and no less than 12 fasting dishes (crushed and boiled wheat, smoked and cooked plums, cooked grains, cereals rolled in cabbage, chopped mushrooms with garlic, soup of mushrooms, baked and beaten up beans etc.) and also fish dishes.
The night of Christ’s birth, turned into day by carol singers, who wake all the villages with their carols once it gets dark and cross all streets throughout during the whole night, announcing the Great Event, is unforgettable.
Other reasons to direct your choice in Bucovina are the shows of winter habits, which are organized on December 27 in Suceava, on December 29 in Hearth of Dorna and on December 30 in Gura Humorului and Radauti.
I’m sure that Christmas celebrated in Bucovina will be remembered as a warm, nice and tender memory.
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