New Year vies with Easter as the most important celebration in the Romanian calendar, the latter being the most important religious celebration of course. New Year’s Eve, Revelion, is an important date in our home as it is Petronela’s birthday – so ‘open house’ in accord with Romanian tradition. All are an ‘excuse’ for a magnificent feast which would please any Yorkshireman. Our tiny flat was stuffed, as were our bellies, with traditional Romanian New Year dance and celebration music as a background (see video clips links at the end of this post).
Romanian music
January 2, 2015
Happy New Year! – Revelion in Yorkshire: Romanian food and wine, and a birthday
Posted by grumpytyke under Bucovina, Food, Music, Romania, Romanian food, Romanian music, Uncategorized | Tags: Bucovina, cooking, Food, Revelion, Romania, Romanian food, Romanian New Year traditions, Romanian shop Leeds, Romanian traditional music, Romanian traditions, Romanian wines |[10] Comments
October 26, 2013
Saint Dimitrie – how I got my ‘other’ name
Posted by grumpytyke under Eastern Europe, History, Personal history, Romania, Romanian music | Tags: 26th October, Eastern Orthodox Tradition, Iasi, Name days, Orthodox religion, Romania, Saint Dimitrios dimitri dumitru, Stefan cel Mare |[4] Comments
Today is Saint Dimitrie’s day, so also ‘my’ day as Dimitrie is my name too, given to me when I was baptised on 26th October. In the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, the name day corresponds to the day on which a saint “fell asleep”, or died (Gregorian calendar).
I was given the name in the Orthodox church of ‘Stefan cel Mare Domnesc (the Lord’s Church of Stephen the Great), Iasi, the church I attended when I lived in that Romanian city (and the church in which I was married).
Although in Romania the saint is known as Dumitru, I chose the Russian version – hence Dimitrie – and that is how my several Orthodox priest friends, and some other friends, call me.
When I was in Romania people would call at my home on this day and share a drink and a snack, or even a celebration meal. Now, in the UK, I receive email messages and ‘iconograms’ from friends and relatives in Romania, especially from my Godparents – Godfather Vasile, now a mathematics lecturer in an Australian university, and Godmother Gabriela. (more…)
December 9, 2012
A Christmas card for someone who cannot see – listen
Posted by grumpytyke under Bucovina, Decorated eggs, Music, Romania, Romanian music, Uncategorized | Tags: blind, Bucovina, Christmas cards, Christmas carols, creativity, Decorated eggs, Iasi, Mira choir, Romania, Romanian carols, sight loss, Stefan cel Mare |1 Comment
Christmas is getting closer and much as I, being an old traditionalist, like to ignore it until Christmas Eve, I can’t do that as far as sending Christmas cards is concerned. So today I’ve devoted to making some.
This year I thought I’d do something with pictures of Romanian decorated eggs; decorated with Christmas scenes and symbols is not traditional, nor is feeding a ribbon through so it can be hung on the Christmas tree. I think I can take ‘credit’ for this as a suggestion made when I was working in a project to try to increase the income of the ladies who decorate the eggs.
I cannot take any credit for the one below – again it is not ‘traditional’ but the relatively small number of women making these wonderful paintings on hens’ eggs have no artistic training – it’s a natural talent. Some of the nuns in the monasteries paint eggs like this too.
However, I have some people I want to send a Christmas card to who cannot see – tenants in the houses supported by the small charity for which I work and a couple of work colleagues. What about them?
What better than enclosing a CD with some of the wonderful Romanian Christmas carols, very beautiful and very different to the carols I was used to before I went to Romania.
Here are just three from the ‘Christmas card CD’ I have made this morning (hopefully if you click on them they’ll play on your computer – they’re MP3 files not the CD audio files).
22 Colindul clopotelor 21 Linu-i lin 19 O, ce veste minunata
22. The carol of the bells
21. I can’t translate it – smooth (like the music)
19. O, what wonderful news
– sung by the superb ‘Mira’ choir of the ‘Lord’s Church of St. Nicholas’ in Iasi, Romania (Lord in the sense of ruler, of Moldova, Stefan cel Mare – Stephen the Great). The only musical instrument in the Romanian church is the human voice, if you discount the bells and the toaca (the wooden board drummed to summon the faithful to prayer), of which this Iasi church has neither. I have been lucky enough to hear this choir many times when I lived in Iasi, not just at Christmas. The church is the one in which I was married.
The third carol is my favourite, perhaps because it is the first I learned by heart and surprised my pupils each year by singing it to them. For you, I can assure you that Mira is much better!
You’ll find Mira on YouTube: