Presentation of our countries in the Institute for languages

After one week and half of the preparation for this presentation, we finally did it! We were so much worry because we all want to present our country and language in the best way. What we did actually? We made a presentation of Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria and about their languages, too.  The presentation took place in the Institute for languages in Seu de Urgell, and in our surprise there where a lot of visitors who came because of us. In fact, in the beginning, we had technical problems but we improvisated and at the end all of us were satisfied. We want to say a big THANKS for people from Institut because they made a big welcome for us after our presentation!

Hope to have more experiences like this!

Ukrainian Easter (Velykden)

 Easter is the feast of Christ’s resurrection, which in its observance combines both pagan and Christian elements. Easter (in Ukrainian: ‘Velykden’ or ‘Paskha’) is preceded by seven weeks of Lent and celebrated on each first week after vernal equinox and full moon. It is the most cheerful holiday for orthodox believers.

In Ukraine Easter is called Velykden (The Great Day). In Ukraine Easter has been celebrated over a long period of history and has had many rich folk traditions.

Velykden was celebrated thousands of years ago as the victory of the Light over the Dark, Day over Night, Spring over Winter. The Resurrection was celebrated only from 988 when Kiev Rus was baptized.

The week before Easter, the Great (Velykyi) Week (Holy Week), is called the White (Bilyi) or Pure (Chystyi) Week.

During this time all the work on a field have to be done till Thursday.

Saturday evening people do to the church for the Easter praying till the morning when priests bless the food. After that people go home to celebrate Easter with their families. If they meet other people on the way they say: “Christ is risen!” and these people should reply “Risen indeed”.

All the people exchange Easter greetings and give each other painted eggs (krashanky).

Easter cake (Paska) and painted eggs (‘Krashanki’) are the symbols of Ukrainian Easter and obligatory food on the table this day. Paska is baked  in the form of cylinder. Krashanka is a boiled and painted egg. On this Day Ukrainian kids play their favorite Easter game: knocking the eggs. If you knock somebody’s egg and you egg is not broken than you are the winner.

Easter is one of the most popular holidays Ukrainians, and there are a lot of festivals held those days, such as: "The Easter egg festival" in Kiev, "The Great Hayivka festival" in Lviv, "The Easter egg festival" in Colomya. Positive spring atmosphere attracts many tourists. People dance, sing Easter songs: "hayivky" and  "mayivky".

Let's go to Hungary :)

12 beautiful photos to make you wonder why you haven’t visited Hungary yet...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liberty Bridge,Budapest-Csilla Zelko

Budapest Parliament Building,Budapest-Krénn Imre

St. Stephen's Basilica,Budapest-Yury

Bokodi Lake-Arthur Burming

Sunrise at the pools,Egerszalók-Viktor Lakics

Bory Castle,Székesfehérvár-László Gál

Danube River,Budapest-Jacques Szymanski

Normafa Park,Budapest-Csilla Zelko

Underground,Budapest-Joseph Borsi

Széchenyi Chain Bridge,Budapest-Mark Kats

Fort Monostor,Komárom-Viktor Egyed

Lake Balaton,Badacsony

 

Hungarian Easter

Easter is a 2 days holiday in Hungary.There are a lot of interesting folk customs still alive all over Hungary.Many of them are connected with religious holidays,while others have older origins,from early,sometimes from prehistoric years.Two of the mostt common folk customs are sprinkling and egg-painting,and the two go hand in hand.This very old tradition is that people believed in the cleaning,healing and fertility effect of water.

  

 Easter Monday is a very busy day,so everyone gets up early;girls and women dress up in traditional costumes and they are waiting.Boys and men visit all of their women relatives,friends,neighbors,often even if they are not close friends.Boys in small groups,fathers with their sons,or single men leave early in the morning and their "tour" last all day long.They greet girls and woman with shorter-longer poems(mostly with funny poem about "Easter sprinkling").The payment is depends on the age of the guy,usually it's a painted eggs-wich woman prepare for days before Easter,the color is mostly red)-,candy,sometimes money and for men is some spirit-so it's not uncommon to get drunk as the day goes by.It's a shame if a girl is not ready when the first sprinklers arrive,and it is also a shame if she doesn't have enough painted eggs for her visitors.Younger girls often have a friendly competition on who gets the most sprinklers.


The style of eggs depends on the part of the country...

On  this holiday also very important to be with family,and have a breakfast together,when the table is richly laden.Alongside slices of fragnant ham,the table is adorned with a braided Easter loaf;there are eggs,boiled in the cooking liquid from the ham,and grated horseradish,served alone or in vinegar dressing.The accompaniments include mustard,radishes,and young onions. 

Our motto is: "No Easter meal is complete without ham!" 

Serbian Easter- the most joyful day of Spring!

In most Slavic languages, the name for Easter either means "Great Day" or "Great Night" (Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Belarusian). In Serbian, however, the day's name reflects a particular theological connection: it is called Uskrs, meaning "Resurrection". It also explains the fact that in Serbian Easter is sometimes also called Vaskrs, a liturgical form from  Church Slavonic.

In a religious tradition, families are having their baskets of coloured eggs blessed by the parish priest. Usually, the eggs are red, symbolizing happiness, joy, rebirth and the blood of Christ. Families exchange eggs and say, Hristos Voskrese (Christ is risen). The response is Voistinu Voskrese (Indeed He has risen).

The main thing in the Serbian celebration of Easter is the egg, the symbol of a new life. Easter eggs in Western Europe can be made of chocolate and sold in supermarkets. Like here, in Spain. However, Serbs use ordinary chicken eggs at Easter, boiling them at home on Friday, which is called Big Friday.

While the Easter weekend is the climax of the celebration, for many Serbs the festivities start on Lazar’s Saturday, April 16th. On that day, church floors are covered for the afternoon liturgy with the flower known as vrbica, or in English-  purple loosestrife.

During the ceremony, the priest blesses the flowers and shares them with believers.

This day marks Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Vrbica is a Serbian version of the palm fronds that children laid down on Jesus’ path. Believers also make corona out of vrbica flowers and place them on their front doors. The tradition is dyeing the first set of eggs in red and saving one of them aside until next Easter. That egg is called the housekeeper, referring to the belief that the egg will help to protect the home.

Although coloured dyes for the eggs can be bought in the market, most people still dye at least 10 eggs by boiling them with onion.

The onion gives eggs a nice caramel colour. And if you want to create a decoration on the egg, just draw on it with wax before boiling. But that's just one of the egg colouring tricks and technics.

Easter bunnies are becoming more popular all over the world, but the animal that truly symbolises Easter in a religious manner for Serbs is the baby chick – the natural product of the egg.

Big Friday Mass is performed in front of a replica of Jesus’ cover, symbolising the removal of the body from the cross.

Saturday is reserved for decorating homes. 

Easter Sunday starts with bells ringing in churches through the country. 

In the Orthodox tradition, believers give up certain 
foods during the 40 days up to Easter.
After morning liturgy families have breakfast together and play the game of tucanje, which involves cracking eggs against each other to see which one breaks first.

Most Serbs spend Easter on visiting friends and family. But also those Serbs which are not religious, still paint eggs on a Big Friday and for sure everybody gives gifts on a Big Sunday and play tucanje. For kids, it's always a joy to celebrate Easter because it is said that gifts are brought by Easter Bunny. It's like Santa Claus for a Christmas. Bunny usually gives toys, sweets, even money and some painted eggs in a basket. And he hides a basket in the grass so children must look for a present. Similar to Christmas socks where Santa is leaving his gifts.

Bottom line, it's a joyful holiday, especially for children, but its a Spring Christmas for all! While children are waiting to search for their gifts, parents are showing to neighbours and friends how lovely egg decoration they have this year! 

Saying THANKS to Minairons

Like people from Minairons who made a special gift to say Thank you to us, volunteers, this is a few words for saying Thank you to them.

 THANK YOU:

For all positive energy on every Wednesday that we spent together.

 For waking up a child and creativity in us.

 For remembering us even outside of the classroom.