Easter in Slovenia

 

Blaž: Hi! I’m Blaž.

Anja: And I’m Anja. We’re going to present you the Easter customs in Slovenia.

Blaž: Let’s start with the Easter Saturday.

We get up early in the morning. People go to church. The priest lights the fire there and blesses it. Young people bring a tree fungus and they put it on the fire and make it burn. Then they take it from house to house to light the blessed fire. Every house gives them some money. Housewives use that fire to bake a traditional Slovenian cake called potica. That's the best part of the day for me.

For potica you need the dough and for the filling you use walnuts and raisins. You roll out the dough and you cover it with the filling. You roll everything together and you put in the oven for one hour.

Then we colour the Easter eggs. Usually we boil them in onion skin, which gives them a nice colour. Red onions are the most popular. In the south of Slovenia they traditionally make a pisanica. This is a special kind of an Easter egg. First they make two holes on the each side of the egg, and they blow out insides. They color the egg red. They used hot wax to make drawings on the egg. Then they put it in black colour. When it dries they clean off the wax and get beautiful decorations.

We take the Easter eggs, potica, horseradish and ham to the blessing. It is usually held at a roadside chapel. There the priest blesses all the food. We take it home, but we mustn’t eat it until the next day.

Anja: On Sunday morning the whole family gets up together. We have breakfast. It’s very symbolic. We eat Easter eggs and horseradish. These are the symbols of the Christ’s tears and the nails. Then we eat ham which is the symbol of the Christ’s body. We eat potica. It symbolizes the Christ’s crown.

In the afternoon we visit our friends and relatives. Adults talk about different things, and kids play games. One of the most popular games is chopping Easter Eggs or sekanje. For that you need coins and an Easter egg. You draw a line and put the egg two meters away. You stand behind the line and throw coins into the egg. The one who cuts the Egg in two parts is the winner. He or she takes all money.

Monday is a national holiday in Slovenia. Parents stay at home and the schools are closed.
In Mirna Peč, the town we are from, there is a traditional motorcycle blessing. There are five thousand motorcycles from all over Slovenia come to Mirna Peč. The priest blesses all the riders and their bikes. We always go there to see the show.

The rest of the day families spend together.

Blaž: Thank you for you attention.