A lot of my foreign friends were always surprised when I told them my Easter/Christmas was celebrated on a different date than theirs. What I discovered is also the fact that even though we celebrate the same holiday, traditions and "holiday routines" so to say differ quite a bit. That's why I decided to make a "foreigner's guide to Transcarpathian Easter".
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| Making a dough for the Easter bread according to an old recipe book. |
First of all, Easter is quite a big deal in Ukraine: some people are keeping a great 40 days long Lent prior to Easter and this is THE day, when they can have a grand feast; some don't, but Easter Sunday is always a day of family reunions, good food and a great mood.
But even though Sunday is the actual Easter, it's far more about Saturday before that makes this holiday so atmospheric. Why? Because in a lot of families, a few generations of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons are preoccupied with making Easter meals, such as: Easter bread (plain and sweet), egg cheese, ham, painted eggs etc. So basically you have a whole experience that starts from the day before, having great conversations over cooking special food,
being a true team player in the family and spending time with dear people.
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| Here comes the creative part: decoration of the bread. This is the moment when you let yourself unleash an artist within you and no matter how much of an artist you are, it always ends up being a "masterpiece" with the unique vision and interpretation. As you can see, my pottery classes when I was 4 didn't really help me much :) |
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| Sweet bread with raisins, nuts, cottage cheese and lemon zest. |
Another creative tradition in Ukraine is to paint Easter eggs. You have loads of ways of how to do it: with the help of paint, boiled in onion peel, decorated with candle wax, adorned with beads, ribbons and whatever else crosses one's mind. Since neither my family members, nor I are renowned painters, we usually prefer to play it safe and go for the ready made patterns, which you fold around an egg and put into the boiling water for a couple of seconds.
After all the preparations are done, the best part begins: organising all that food of yours into the basket to later on go to the church and consecrate the basket with holy water.
The typical basket usually includes: Easter bread, wine, candle, egg cheese, painted eggs, salt, butter and ham. But, of course, you can always put whatever you want to.
There are different times you can consecrate your Easter basket: some time during the night and in the morning. I personally prefer night, since it looks incredible when people form a live corridor and light the candles that shine brightly in the dark, adding up to the whole experience of going to the church.
Some time around 2 am clergymen start to consecrate the baskets with the holy water saying "Christ is Risen" while people answer "Glory to him". After that, happy and elevated, people are rushing home to have their meal while watching TV programmes about Jesus. Easter is officially on.
The two consecutive days, on Mondays and Tuesday another tradition takes place: guys and girls are "watering" each other. Original idea is that on Monday guys are going to their female friends' homes and put some perfumes on them and on Tuesday girls do the same to the guys, however in practice, children and teenagers are running around and watering strangers with any kind of water they can find around.
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| The Easter Egg Trees exhibition from all over Transcarpathia in front of the regional council. |
Easter has always been a unique holiday for me. It's not about the holiday itself, but about those precious moments that you share with others, special kindness between strangers who greet each other and, of course, amazing homemade food!
