Paștele Blajinilor

My favorite Moldovan celebration is Paștele Blajinilor (Easter Memorial, or Easter for the dead... loose translations), which takes place over 2 days - the Sunday and Monday following Orthodox Easter. It's when the cemeteries all over Moldova (and other Eastern European countries, i'm told) come alive with family, friends, food, and drink at loved ones' graves. Every grave (to my knowledge) in Moldova has a permanent picnic table and benches set up just for this occasion. 

How it works: You go to the cemetery with your foods and drinks. Set up your table. Decorate your loved ones' graves. Wait for the priest to come by to bless it and to spray you with holy water. Then everyone eats and drinks and socializes. People walk around with bottles of their casa de vin (house wine) and offer shots of it to everyone else...it's definitely the fastest way to get...tipsy...because everyone's just pouring you shots left and right. 

I love it for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones is because it's a truly authentic holiday that just can't be replicated anywhere else. It's unique to Moldova (and a few other countries). I also love cemeteries...and it really is a beautiful thing when a place for the dead comes so alive with celebration! 

I got to take part in it again this past Monday with Mama-G at her parents' cemetery in the village she grew up in :o]

I love that they grow plants over the grave sites. Another example of abundance of life in their cemeteries!

Easter Egg Hunt!

This year Easter celebrated in America and elsewhere in the world was on March 27, but Orthodox Easter (which most Moldovans observe) is on May 1. 

I decided to have an Easter egg hunt with all of my classes to celebrate non-Orthodox Easter. Thanks to my American peeps (no pun intended), i was able to do so cuz they sent me the plastic eggs (about 150 of them), American candy, and even peeps! I also included slap bracelets (thank you again America), Moldovan candies, 7 lei per class (in 1 leu bills), $1USD per class, stickers, and free points. All the kids had a blast! :oD

Here was my set-up. It took quite awhile to fill all those eggs!

This is my 9th grade class with my partner, Natalia in the white on the left. They were my last class of the day and 3 of my 6th grade boys came back before the 9th graders came, as i was still hiding the eggs, and stole some of them, including the one with the $1USD! I was sooooooooooo mad! So for punishment i took away any points they got from the eggs and made them apologize in person to the 9th grade class...they were so embarrassed! Overall, it was a succes!

Paștele blîjinilor (Memorial Easter)

Like most other holidays in Moldova, Easter also has 2 celebrations! There is Orthodox Easter, which i wrote about in an earlier post, and a Memorial Easter, which is celebrated the Sunday and Monday following Orthodox Easter. 

Paștele blînjilor was my favorite Moldovan tradition/custom that i've experienced so far! The tradition is to go to the cemeteries where loved ones are buried and basically have a picnic! Every grave has a permanent picnic table. What makes this tradition so awesome is that everyone partakes in it, so the cemeteries are FULL OF LIFE, LOVE, LAUGHTER, and, of course, BOOZE! ;op

Mama-G at her parents' graves:

Isn't she so cute??!! I LOVE HER!!!

The Priest blessing the food. He went around to each grave blessing them. We ended up waiting a couple hours for him to get to us...which means no eating or drinking until the food is blessed...which would have been ok, but that day was FREEZING and drizzling, so the wait was a little painful. But despite the not-so-great weather, it was still my favorite Moldovan tradition!