The following are strictly personal views/observations and in no way reflect the views of the Peace Corp nor the federal government of the United States.
There are approximately 10 holidays a month in Moldova. Not all are celebrated per se, but all are recognized to some degree. Some examples of types of holidays here: Grandmothers Day, Womens Day, Childrens Day, Saint Maria’s Day, Day of the Dead, Martisoral, New Years, Orthodox New Years, Romanian Language Day, Independence Day, Victory Day, Hram/Village Anniversary (often celebrated for your own village as well as every village within a 30km radius), Fire Day, Saint Andrew’s Day, First Day of School, Saint John’s Day, Baptism Day, Post (Eastern Orthodox version of Lint), Pre-Post, Post-Post.
Most often holiday recognition consists simply of not performing arduous tasks or doing certain types of work and consuming alcohol during the afternoon and evening hours. The only problem I have come across with the no work rule is that apparently the only type of work that is considered scandalous to do on a holiday is laundry. It is not permitted for laundry to be done the day of a holiday, the day before a holiday and the day after a holiday. Thus, two or three weeks a month laundry can only be done three or four days out of the seven days of the week. Fortunately though there is some flexibility in the laundry washing rules. Clothes can be rinsed and/or hung out on the line as well as collected from the line on a holiday they simply can not be soaped during the holiday non-work period. It is rumored that if you break the no laundry soaping on a holiday rule then God will break your legs.
Below I have detailed some of the more memorable Moldovan holidays.
This summer, approximately the third week of July, was Ziua de Foc, which translates into Fire Day. This sounds like a holiday meant for arsonists, but it actually is just the opposite. On fire day, fire must not be created, thus no cooking, no heating water, etc. Everyone just sits around, watches television and eats cold leftovers from the previous day.
Ziua de Sfintal Andre, or Saint Andrew’s Day, is in the first half of the month of December. The night before the actual holiday the boys in the village steal the gate of the girl that they have affection for. Then the next day the girls with stolen gates must find their gates’ captor and retrieve their gate. During the night while the boys are out stealing gates, the girls stay at home doing witchcraft, all of which pertains to ascertaining who will be your husband and/or making a man marry you. Some of the preferred witchcraft rituals: take the hair from your hairbrush and sleep with it under your pillow thereby inducing dreams of your future husband. Or place different objects on the floor in a room, and then bring a live chicken into the room. Whatever object the chicken goes to, that tells you something about your future husband, for example if the chicken approaches the money, then your husband will be rich. Lastly, if you sleep with the dirty socks of the boy you like then he will become your husband.
Christmas in Moldova is a unique holiday, and much less of an event than the standard American Christmas. Eastern Orthodox Christmas is on January 7th. I was expecting a huge blowout holiday, considering how excited Moldovans get about birthdays I assumed that the birthday of Christ would be the ultimate birthday, but that was a completely incorrect assumption. At a Moldovan Christmas there is limited gift giving, no Christmas trees, in fact in private homes there is no decorating done at all. Christmas festivities principally consist of drinking mass quantities of wine and cognac, and then going around to other peoples’ houses and singing Christmas carols. Then the day after the Christmas festivities everyone lies around the house and climbs out from under their hangovers.
Sfintal Vasile and Orthodox New Year’s, is the weekend after Orthodox Christmas. These two holidays are celebrated together by young people going door to door, similar to the caroling at Christmas, and giving well wishes. For example, the well wish presented to me by my students went something like: “We wish you to get married someday, have fruitful loins which produce strong boys and beautiful girls, to have much of the money, and not to get old fast.” After the toast the well wishers are invited in for candy and wine, and then when they depart they are given money, about 10 lei apiece (10 lei = 90 cents).
Pastile or Easter, is celebrated at the same time as Easter in America, so a randomly selected Sunday in April. Easter preparation requires the dyeing of uncooked and cooked eggs, however, all the eggs must be colored red. It is considered a sin to dye an egg a cheerful pastel hue. The Easter celebration in Moldova consists of going to the cemetery in the afternoon and then going to church for six consecutive hours at night, approximately 6:00pm to 12:00am. After church everyone returns home, cracks the uncooked dyed red eggs, and then smears the contents of the uncooked eggs onto their face. It is imperative that the egg is not washed off the face until the next morning.
Ziua Mortilor or Day of the Dead is celebrated on the Monday a week after Easter. This day everyone goes to the cemetery in homage to their deceased predecessors. They cover the grave in a towel and on the towel they put out bowls filled with candy, cookies, cooked red eggs, and clatite (crepes). They also take small tree branches and string candy and cookies on the tree branch, the tree branches covered in edibles are then placed in the ground around the grave. Once the temporary monument of consumables is in place the ingestion of alcohol begins. Visitors to the cemetery stalk from grave to grave brandishing a bottle of cognac or wine and a glass, give mournful toasts, and systematically get everyone present inebriated. After about two hours of alcohol consumption, when the alcohol supply is exhausted, people take the bowls of consumables and give them to each other with a standard well wish, that loosely translates to : ‘I give you this bowl of cookies/candy to help ease the suffering you feel from the loss of your forebears.’ However, when this toast was given to me by an intoxicated Moldovan speaking a slurred mixture of Romanian and Russian it sounded like this: ‘Alksdfgoi sdkffdied dckffsdiohs uiortijocxvbkj nfdgjiofds jfdgu!’ After the exchange of dishware and cookie/candy varietals everyone gathers their respective towel and departs for home to take a nap.
There are approximately 10 holidays a month in Moldova. Not all are celebrated per se, but all are recognized to some degree. Some examples of types of holidays here: Grandmothers Day, Womens Day, Childrens Day, Saint Maria’s Day, Day of the Dead, Martisoral, New Years, Orthodox New Years, Romanian Language Day, Independence Day, Victory Day, Hram/Village Anniversary (often celebrated for your own village as well as every village within a 30km radius), Fire Day, Saint Andrew’s Day, First Day of School, Saint John’s Day, Baptism Day, Post (Eastern Orthodox version of Lint), Pre-Post, Post-Post.
Most often holiday recognition consists simply of not performing arduous tasks or doing certain types of work and consuming alcohol during the afternoon and evening hours. The only problem I have come across with the no work rule is that apparently the only type of work that is considered scandalous to do on a holiday is laundry. It is not permitted for laundry to be done the day of a holiday, the day before a holiday and the day after a holiday. Thus, two or three weeks a month laundry can only be done three or four days out of the seven days of the week. Fortunately though there is some flexibility in the laundry washing rules. Clothes can be rinsed and/or hung out on the line as well as collected from the line on a holiday they simply can not be soaped during the holiday non-work period. It is rumored that if you break the no laundry soaping on a holiday rule then God will break your legs.
Below I have detailed some of the more memorable Moldovan holidays.
This summer, approximately the third week of July, was Ziua de Foc, which translates into Fire Day. This sounds like a holiday meant for arsonists, but it actually is just the opposite. On fire day, fire must not be created, thus no cooking, no heating water, etc. Everyone just sits around, watches television and eats cold leftovers from the previous day.
Ziua de Sfintal Andre, or Saint Andrew’s Day, is in the first half of the month of December. The night before the actual holiday the boys in the village steal the gate of the girl that they have affection for. Then the next day the girls with stolen gates must find their gates’ captor and retrieve their gate. During the night while the boys are out stealing gates, the girls stay at home doing witchcraft, all of which pertains to ascertaining who will be your husband and/or making a man marry you. Some of the preferred witchcraft rituals: take the hair from your hairbrush and sleep with it under your pillow thereby inducing dreams of your future husband. Or place different objects on the floor in a room, and then bring a live chicken into the room. Whatever object the chicken goes to, that tells you something about your future husband, for example if the chicken approaches the money, then your husband will be rich. Lastly, if you sleep with the dirty socks of the boy you like then he will become your husband.
Christmas in Moldova is a unique holiday, and much less of an event than the standard American Christmas. Eastern Orthodox Christmas is on January 7th. I was expecting a huge blowout holiday, considering how excited Moldovans get about birthdays I assumed that the birthday of Christ would be the ultimate birthday, but that was a completely incorrect assumption. At a Moldovan Christmas there is limited gift giving, no Christmas trees, in fact in private homes there is no decorating done at all. Christmas festivities principally consist of drinking mass quantities of wine and cognac, and then going around to other peoples’ houses and singing Christmas carols. Then the day after the Christmas festivities everyone lies around the house and climbs out from under their hangovers.
Sfintal Vasile and Orthodox New Year’s, is the weekend after Orthodox Christmas. These two holidays are celebrated together by young people going door to door, similar to the caroling at Christmas, and giving well wishes. For example, the well wish presented to me by my students went something like: “We wish you to get married someday, have fruitful loins which produce strong boys and beautiful girls, to have much of the money, and not to get old fast.” After the toast the well wishers are invited in for candy and wine, and then when they depart they are given money, about 10 lei apiece (10 lei = 90 cents).
Pastile or Easter, is celebrated at the same time as Easter in America, so a randomly selected Sunday in April. Easter preparation requires the dyeing of uncooked and cooked eggs, however, all the eggs must be colored red. It is considered a sin to dye an egg a cheerful pastel hue. The Easter celebration in Moldova consists of going to the cemetery in the afternoon and then going to church for six consecutive hours at night, approximately 6:00pm to 12:00am. After church everyone returns home, cracks the uncooked dyed red eggs, and then smears the contents of the uncooked eggs onto their face. It is imperative that the egg is not washed off the face until the next morning.
Ziua Mortilor or Day of the Dead is celebrated on the Monday a week after Easter. This day everyone goes to the cemetery in homage to their deceased predecessors. They cover the grave in a towel and on the towel they put out bowls filled with candy, cookies, cooked red eggs, and clatite (crepes). They also take small tree branches and string candy and cookies on the tree branch, the tree branches covered in edibles are then placed in the ground around the grave. Once the temporary monument of consumables is in place the ingestion of alcohol begins. Visitors to the cemetery stalk from grave to grave brandishing a bottle of cognac or wine and a glass, give mournful toasts, and systematically get everyone present inebriated. After about two hours of alcohol consumption, when the alcohol supply is exhausted, people take the bowls of consumables and give them to each other with a standard well wish, that loosely translates to : ‘I give you this bowl of cookies/candy to help ease the suffering you feel from the loss of your forebears.’ However, when this toast was given to me by an intoxicated Moldovan speaking a slurred mixture of Romanian and Russian it sounded like this: ‘Alksdfgoi sdkffdied dckffsdiohs uiortijocxvbkj nfdgjiofds jfdgu!’ After the exchange of dishware and cookie/candy varietals everyone gathers their respective towel and departs for home to take a nap.
posted by Klharmon | 8:47 AM
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