Palm Sunday Crafts Fair at the Village Museum in Bucharest

In other words, on Palm Sunday we also celebrate, with great excitement, the pagan Roman holiday of Floralia. This holiday, which took place in the times of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire over several days at the end of April and beginning of May, was dedicated to Flora, goddess of flowers and spring, one of the minor fertility goddesses. Her name is derived from the Latin word flos, -ris – which gave the words flower and flora in English.

What many Bucharesters do on Palm Sunday is go to the Village Museum ("Muzeul Satului" in Romanian), where year after year there is a crafts fair held on this occasion. You’ll see painstakingly embroidered folk costumes that take months to make, decorated Easter eggs (with wax, beads, and with the decoration on real eggs emptied of their content or on wooden eggs), decorated plates made in Horezu, decorated ceramics made in Corund, carpets and runners, natural food products, including jam, honey, and plum brandy, and so on. There are also icons on glass, a tradition popular here in Romania.

People pretty much know what to expect, and yet every single year they crowd into the Village Museum to enjoy the crafts, the art, the spring blossoms (I loved the lilacs, the apple trees, and the quince trees), the music (there’s always some music; on some occasions there are also wonderful folk dance ensembles), and the food (there’s an inn on the premises, which actually serves food to the visitors). This year there was also bragă, a fermented drink made from millet and cornmeal. We have a phrase about this drink, “ieftin ca braga” (cheap as braga). Well, not anymore. I bought a 1L bottle and paid 10 lei (2.20 euros). And it was selling like hotcakes.

Decorated eggs (ouă încondeiate / ouă împistrite) were selling well too. I already have a collection of 8. There were chicken eggs, turkey eggs, duck eggs, goose eggs – each set larger than the former – as well as ostrich eggs. All pretty interesting. There were also old and new designs. Among the new ones, eggs with Romania spelled in plastic beads as a part of the design, and eggs on a golden background.

Traditionally, the designs and colors on Romanian Easter eggs were those on Romanian folk costumes. The designs were mostly geometric, and the colors used were red, yellow, and blue, together with white and black. Now, as you can see in one photo, there's also light blue in the beaded eggs, and more eggs with figurative designs, such as the one showing a house.

These decorated Easter eggs are made using wax in different ways. 

Similar Easter eggs are created for Easter in various other Eastern European countries. Many of them are named using a word derived from the Russian verb "pysaty," meaning "to write." Belarusians and Poles make pisanka, Bulgarians: pisano yaytse, Slovenes: pisanica, pirhi or remenke, Serbs and Croats: pisanica, Czechs: kraslice, Slovaks: kraslica, Hungarians: hímestojás, and Lithuanians: margutis.

After they're sanctified in church, the willow branches are brought home and made into wreaths. Then they are hanged by an icon, and when they dry off, they are burned. You'll see below a woman making a willow wreath in the Herastrau Park, which the Village Museum is a section of. This was later in the day, hours after the religious service, so she wasn't particularly observant.

In Palm Sunday / Branch Sunday / Willow Sunday customs, the willow performs a double function: a substitute for the date palm, and symbol of spring vegetation. I read online that even in England, Palm Sunday is sometimes called Willow Sunday, and that a certain kind of willow has come to be called "palm willow" by association with Palm Sunday.

The fair at the Village Museum was not only about crafts. There was also a woman selling all kinds of honey, and a couple selling jams and plum brandy. The jams were particularly popular. Rather unusual, too. At least, I didn't know they were common in Moldavia, the northeastern part of the country this couple was from. They had red onion and sour cherry jam, hot pepper jam, and green tomato jam, along with more common jams like dog rose. I got sloe jam, made with 100% sloes (you know, the berries used to make sloe gin) and no sugar. I rather enjoyed it. First time I tried.

I wrote more about the Village Museum (Muzeul Satului) and Herastrau Park (Parcul Herăstrău) in Bucharest, Romania in a previous article, accompanied by photos and a short edited HD video sequence. You can see that article here.

If you visit Bucharest, then this is a combo attraction I recommend.