#Romaniantraditions

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Ilinca Stroe

Dec 19, 2018
3 min

Christmas Wishes, Romanian Style

To a nation where people wish each other things on a wildly wide range of occasions, from having a haircut to getting down to work or wearing new shoes, the Christmas and New Year wishes are highly important. Whether made over the phone, in a text message, by email or handwritten in a classical Christmas card, the winter holidays wishes go in different tones and styles. Let’s review some of them. 1) Classical & common Standard wishes necessarily include a reference to good he

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Moş Nicolae, the saintly “culprit” for surprises in your boots

Ilinca Stroe

Dec 5, 2018
2 min

Moş Nicolae, the saintly “culprit” for surprises in your boots

It’s winter. Unless you are the victim of Ionel, a spoilt brat who poured jam into his mother’s guest’s boots (in satirist Ion Luca Caragiale’s short story “Vizita”), you should have no good reason to have in your boots anything other than your own socks and feet. Or so you’d think. Well, not if it’s the 6th of December. On that day, early in the morning, here in Romania you’re likely to find sweets and fruit, or alternatively a rod in your boots. And the “culprit” for that w

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Ilinca Stroe

Nov 7, 2018
12 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Roma Romanians

In her Memoirs, Zoe Cămărăşescu, a Romanian aristocrat whose mother had been a lady-in-waiting at the belle époque Court of King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth, refers repeatedly to the Roma protagonists of her childhood memories. One such man is Vasile the coachman of the boyar Golescu family, “a former slave on their estate who, when the slaves were freed, declared that he didn’t need his freedom and wished to stay on with the Golescus”; Vasile was the family patriarchs’ most

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Making Wishes in Romanian: Occasions and Phrases

Ilinca Stroe

Aug 15, 2018
3 min

Making Wishes in Romanian: Occasions and Phrases

If you’re an expat who has lived in Romania for a few good months, you are very likely to have been told, when you got a haircut or a new hairdo, something along the lines of “May it settle well with you!” – which didn’t make much sense but sounded wholeheartedly positive. Similarly, if you’re a Romanian using English as a foreign language, you’re quite likely to have asked an English native, “What do you wish someone who’s got a new pair of shoes?” (You don’t wish them anyth

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Peaceful Weekend Getaways: Three Monasteries

Ilinca Stroe

Jul 18, 2018
4 min

Peaceful Weekend Getaways: Three Monasteries

Personally, I love visiting cathedrals. Integrated into the urban landscape and yet cutting out a section of it which is emotionally special, a bridge to the everlasting past, historic cathedrals, with their high vaults, allow your spirit to straighten up and rise like the sound of a flute towards the high ceiling - liberated for a while from the inconveniences of here and now. And should pipe organ music accompany the spiritual mini-tour, access to some sort of “higher level

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Ilinca Stroe

Jul 12, 2018
19 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Athletes

How long have Romanians done sports? That can be answered highly accurately: not as long as the Greeks. For we didn’t invent the Olympic Games. We do, however, have a traditional national sport more often than not known as oină: it’s similar to baseball and it was first historically recorded in 1364 as being popular in old Wallachia; for a while, it became national policy enforced by the 1898 Education Reform, when the Ministry of Education made oină compulsory for physical e

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Dead Funny Up North: Săpânţa’s Unique Cemetery

Ilinca Stroe

Jul 4, 2018
3 min

Dead Funny Up North: Săpânţa’s Unique Cemetery

It probably takes comedian Hugh Laurie’s straight face to be able to announce serenely, “This lovely summer we warmly recommend that you go to the cemetery.” The Merry Cemetery. “Downtown” the village of Săpânţa, a little settlement perched up north in Maramureş County, close to Romania’s border with Ukraine, the Merry Cemetery is final home to around 800 deceased villagers, and a UNESCO heritage site which has made it repeatedly in the top 10 of world’s best funerary destina

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Ilinca Stroe

Jun 13, 2018
11 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Writers

Once upon a time, Romanians put pen to paper... To be more specific, it was 1521 when the first known piece of writing in Romanian (with Cyrillic letters) was produced. It was a letter from Wallachian [1] boyar Neacşu Lupu, a resident of Câmpulung, to the mayor of today’s city of Braşov, “warning him of an imminent attack” of the Ottomans on Transylvania. [2] The text was no fiction, its author – not a professional writer. Indeed, over the following two centuries most of the

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Fasting – a Romanian tradition explained

Ilinca Stroe

Mar 29, 2018
2 min

Fasting – a Romanian tradition explained

When we say "fasting", we immediately think of food restrictions, that is, what we eliminate from our rich, daily diet - meat, dairy, eggs, and fish. But the benefits of this practice are part of a much deeper body cleaning and detoxification cycle. Fasting, at a more profound level, has other benefits as well - increasing cardiovascular health, reducing the risk of cancer, repairing genes and increasing longevity. The body has the great ability to repair and fix itself, as l

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Breaking News: Mărţişor Declares a State of Spring

Ilinca Stroe

Mar 1, 2018
2 min

Breaking News: Mărţişor Declares a State of Spring

There was once a Roman offspring On Momma Dochia’s braided string. Handsome and news-some, Stuck to the ladies’ bosom, Love, luck and much fun he always did bring! If there’s a Romanian tradition to fully deserve an Irish limerick, that’d be the mărţişor! Because of its fine blend of clover-level luck and a spirit of merriment in the month of St Patrick, i.e. March. On Thracian edge-of-the-Empire territory, i.e. nowadays Romania, the tradition understandably and predictably s

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Sarmale and Friends: a Christmas Special

Ilinca Stroe

Dec 19, 2017
3 min

Sarmale and Friends: a Christmas Special

A few years ago around Christmas, a Romanian-American acquaintance I was supposed to meet for a chat and coffee phoned to put off our meeting: he’d been invited to a childhood friend’s house to have a meal of “piftie and other such barbarities.” My acquaintance, a vegetarian Buddhist from an old aristocratic Moldovan family, who was now visiting the old country after 40 years in the US, was, of course, horrified by the prospect. The barbarities in question, colloquially known

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Oana Barbu

Jul 20, 2017
2 min

OINA: Romania’s National Sport

Hey, you! Yes, you! I bet you are a football fan! Or maybe a handball, basketball, baseball fan! Or maybe you are more of a winter sports’ person! It really doesn’t matter! Because I am sure you have never heard about OINĂ! But please, don’t feel bad about it! Most of the Romanians did not hear about it either or if they once did, no one remembers it anymore as the national sport of Romania! So, let me introduce you OINA, Romania’s forgotten national sport! Denominations You

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IA - The Romanian Blouse
(A synthesis of tradition and modernity)

Oana Barbu

Jul 3, 2017
2 min

IA - The Romanian Blouse (A synthesis of tradition and modernity)

For a long time, tradition and modernity were perceived as two opposite concepts. Until recently, tradition was seen as an obstacle to progress and modernization. The perception has changed as a consequence of the debate concerning the effects of globalization on cultural heritage. This debate led to reconsider our own cultural identity and rediscover the things that make us unique in the world. Suddenly, tradition was reconceptualised and became the source of inspiration fo

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Diana Nechifor

Jun 22, 2017
2 min

The Sânziene night

Sânziene - the word designates an annual festival held in honor of the fairies. Etymologically, the name comes from the Latin Sancta, Diana,

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Iulia Andreescu

May 8, 2017
4 min

Romanian Weddings

Nowadays, Romanian weddings are an interesting combination of old and new, religion and tradition. When a couple decides to get married, there are lots of steps and procedures which have to be followed before this event. First of all, they should set up the date and check for the availability of the people from the city hall (for the civil wedding), the priests (for the religious one), as well as for the venue of the wedding party. After all being set, the couple has to find

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Veronica Negru

Apr 14, 2017
2 min

Romanian Easter

The Romanian Easter is an Orthodox holiday. Easter (or the Resurrection) celebrates Jesus’ ascension to Heaven. This is always a Sunday holiday and the Monday after is usually a free day. The word for Easter in Romanian is Paște, with its other form Paști. The most commonly known Easter tradition in Romania is painting eggs. How the eggs are painted will vary from one region to the other. Red is the traditional colour (it symbolizes Jesus’ blood), but in modern days Easter eg

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Ilinca Stroe

Apr 13, 2017
3 min

When the Easter Egg Teaches the Sapiens

Ready? Steady. Hold it right! You hold it honest! No cheating. Ready? Yup. “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” CRACK! Little did we Romanian children know that our Easter eggs, dyed by mother on Holy Thursday in the steamy kitchen where the roast lamb was in a very hot get-perfectly-cooked race against the cozonac [1], had come down through the mists of Time all the way from - where else? - Africa, cradle of all sapiens. Back then and there, humans reportedly decorated o

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Andra Firoi

Apr 13, 2017
1 min

Duminica Floriilor – The Palm Sunday

Vin Floriile cu soare Și soarele cu Florii! (Vasile Alecsandri) Palm Sunday is a Christian feast celebrated on the last Sunday before Easter which is called in Romanian Duminica Floriilor or simply Florii. This is the day that commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The holiday has roots before Christianity, when pagans used to celebrate Floralia, dedicated to goddess Flora, the goddess of flowers. The Roman festival of Floralia is dated in 238 B.C and it used to

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Iulia Andreescu

Apr 13, 2017
3 min

Romanian Traditions in March

1st of March - Mărțișor For celebrating the spring’s arrival on the 1st of March and the beginning of a new life cycle, Romanians have a special tradition, called Mărțișor. This tradition is a very old one (about 8000 years old) and it is linked to Romanian ancestors - the Dacians, who were wearing red and white pebbles strung on a string and worn around the neck, to celebrate the beginning of spring. The word mărțișor is the diminutive from the month of March (martie), whic

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Andra Firoi

Apr 13, 2017
2 min

Dragobete or the Romanian love day

Dragobete is an old Romanian holiday celebrated every year on the 24th of February. After the fall of the communism, it has become a response festivity to Valentine’s Day, very popular in the western countries, but also borrowed by many young Romanian people. The legend says Dragobete was the son of Baba Dochia, a famous character from an old pagan myth related to the arrival of spring and the end of winter. It is the time of the year when birds start building their nests and

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