Easter in Romania

Sweden is a secular country who holds to a few religious traditions for the sake of tradition but not for the sake of any meaning. Easter is Sweden is eating the same "holiday" meal they eat for every holiday with their families, dressing their children as witches who go out collecting candy and money and decorating birch twigs with colorful feathers around the door of your house or business. Swedish folk tradition says Easter witches flew on their brooms to a mountain to party with the devil. I'm very unclear why, but it's the story. So now, children dress as Easter witches with red handkerchiefs and go door to door, like American Halloween. The feathers also have (dare I say strange?) stories about a Norse god of the rabbits who was upset Swedes ate so much rabbit that he sent bad weather (winter). To appease the god Swedes switched to chicken and put the feathers of the chicken on their trees so the god would see they were staying away from the rabbits. It's also said this tradition is about the time in the 1600's when Swedes used to beat each other with twigs on Good Friday to commemorate the suffering of Jesus. Somehow, this seems the most realistic to me considering its suppose to be about Easter.

Påskris (Easter tree) outside a shop

While I was less than impressed with these traditions, it was with little disappointment in missing a Swedish Easter that I took off to experience an Orthodox Easter in Romania with my Romanian friend.

I got to stay with my friend and her family in their Communist constructed apartment building with a double door to keep their neighbors from listening in on them in the beautiful, modernizing capital city Bucharest. Bucharest was once known as "Little Paris" and rivaled Paris with its ornate theaters, beautiful palaces and charming details on each building. However, Romania experienced fifty years of Communism which added its own blocked, drab buildings and tore down some of Bucharest's magnificence. But, since 1989, Romania has been rebuilding itself and I found it entirely wonderful.

Their Arch de Triumph

King Carol I in front of the economics building

A former royal palace now used for the National Museum of Art 

The Anteneu is Romania's concert hall that opened in 1888. World-famous conductors and soloists have graced its presence making it culturally significant for more than 100 years. It is a truly beautiful building with a 75-meter-long fresco running along the concert hall showing the history of Romania. We had the opportunity to attend an oratorio of Moses at Mount Sinai. It was breath-taking.

We toured the Parliament Palace which, with 5100 rooms, is the second largest building it the world just after the Pentagon. Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu wiped out a historic section of Bucharest to build this for his luxurious residence. However, when Romania had its revolution the building wasn't finished yet and the people wanted to destroy it with all other Communist thoughts. However, since it took 700 architects and 20,000 laborers and cost more than a fortune to build, they decided to keep it and use it as their parliament building. Its an impressive but very sad building. My Romanian friends say it is a sad reminder of a piece of their destructive history.

It's also where Michael Jackson greeted a crowd saying, "Hello Budapest!" A bit embarrassing.

It wouldn't be a trip to Romania without a visit to Transylvania. This is Romania's biggest region and holds former castles/palaces, the Carpathian Mountains, village life and is known for being the setting of Dracula. We went on a rainy and gray day but I still found it beautiful in both a charming and haunting way.

But of course, some of my favorite parts of this whole trip was the time spent with my friend's family. Her parents don't speak English so they would jabber away in Romanian at me, patting my head and kissing my cheek, forcing 3 and 5 course meals at me with every turn, not letting me lift a finger to help and wrapping bottles of Romanian wine for me to take back to Sweden with me.

We participated in many traditional Romanian Orthodox Easter traditions. Devout Romanians go to church every day during Easter week. We went on Good Friday and Easter morning (literally at midnight!). On Good Friday people go to church and pass under a table 3 times, kiss icons and pray. Passing under the table is to show you enter into death with Christ. On Easter morning, at midnight, we went to church and received the light from Jerusalem, listened to beautiful music, were prayed over, heard a sermon and did a call-and-response. Most of it was lost on me since it was in Romanian, but the beauty, togetherness and spirit of it all was humbling and I was honored to join my friend and her family during this special time.

Of course we got home at 1:30 am and had to eat a 5 course Easter meal! To say I was exhausted is an understatement.

We kept our lights from Jerusalem lit all night/morning until they burned out

I had a wonderful time in Romania. I feel I've only glimpsed the surface of that unique country. I think future trips must be in order.