How Georgians celebrate Easter

The introduction

In this article I want to tell you about the traditions which Georgians have on Easter and if you visit the country during this period, you should know these things, because Georgians take them pretty seriously.

Everyone knows about Easter, however, it’s different to celebrate Easter in Catholic countries and Orthodox ones, because there are different traditions. For example, we don’t have the chocolate or different coloured eggs hidden somewhere in the garden , so that the children can go looking for them. We just colour the eggs in red colour and have them on the table in those special plates for the eggs.

People usually plant some wheat one week before Easter, so that when the Easter comes, they will have small green grass to decorate the table. They usually plant it on a cotton thing and put it in the middle of that special plate and then they have the eggs around the grass.

The Fasting

There’s usually a fasting until the Easter comes. People start fasting 7 weeks until the Easter and it represents the Jesus being in desert. The fasting is when you don’t eat meat, cheese, milk and eggs and, in fact, you don’t eat much. Sometimes you are allowed to eat dairy products and eggs.

There are whole rules of fasting, especially during the Easter fasting and it depends on the weeks. People usually pray and read some distinct places  in the book. It’s known, that the first and the last weeks of fasting are the most heavy ones.

The Big Thursday

The Thursday until Easter is called “The Big Thursday” and though it’s not an official holiday comparing to The Red Friday and The Day After Easter, it’s a pretty heavy day and it’s known, that people shouldn’t work on the ground,such as do planting or digging the ground, etc.

The Red Friday

Then comes the Red Friday, when it’s the day of Jesus struggle and hanging on the cross. People usually have the eggs coloured in red on this day and it’s said, that you should colour them in red until the sundown.

There’s this traditional thing in the villages and small towns that when one person has an  Endro plant and prepares the Endro as they call it, and when this person colours the eggs in red, then the other person in the neighbourhood asks her to borrow that Endro colouring to colour her eggs, too. Usually this Endro plant is beaten, so that it can emit the red colour and it’s boiled into the water in the saucepan and then the people take this saucepan to colour the eggs in red. They just put the eggs into the saucepan filled with Endro water and have it on a low gas heat until the eggs are hard boiled. Usually the hard boiled eggs can be stored for up to one week in the refrigerator, however, people say that Easter eggs can be kept for a longer time than just one week without getting bitter.

Pascha

Pascha is something that people usually look forward to eating on Easter. It’s a special cake baked for Easter holidays and it represents the Golgotha hill, which Jesus was forced to climb. There’s a characteristic taste of Pascha that makes it be so delicious. they have some spices in the dough, such as cinnamon, cloves, etc.

There are usually Paschas everywhere and people don’t really prepare them at home, because the preparation process is very time consuming and sometimes they fail to be baked perfectly.

Some good Paschas that you can buy are that of Antree Café in Tbilisi one of which is located on Pekini avenue just when you come out of the Technical university metro station, and the Pannetone Italian paschas sold in Goodwill supermarket and Carrefour supermarket. I also tasted the Dunkin’ Donuts Paschas this year, which were pretty good, too. They had small paschas for 4.50 Laris and the large ones for 9 Laris with different coloured glazes, which tasted very good.

The Saturday

On this day people usually prepare some dishes for the Easter gathering. Then they go to the cemeteries to see if everything is fine and they usually cut some bushes and clean the graves and take the excess grass and cut it, etc. They want the graves to look cleaned and tidied, so that when they go there on Easter day or the day after, the graves will be looking alright. If the grave doesn’t look good, then people think, that no one is left alive to take care of that grave or that they just don’t’ care about it.

And then, when it’s late evening, people go to their churches to attend the night service of Easter.

The day of Easter

There’s usually a night in the church when Easter comes and people go to their churches late in the evening on Saturday to attend the service and wait for the Easter day to come. It’s just beautiful when the singers sing in the church and the people around sing them along. They usually do that the whole night.

On the Easter day there’s a fire lit in Jerusalem, and many priests from all over the world attend this miracle and then they light candles with that fire and take them to their home countries to let their people know, that the fire was lit in Jerusalem. People await for this thing to happen impatiently and when the fire “arrives” to them, they light their candles with that fire, too. You should see how every candle gets lit in just some seconds in the churches and how there are those tiny lights all around.

When the Easter comes, it’s traditional to say “Qriste Agsdga” (“Christ has risen”) to the people , let it be friends or just people strange  to you and they will answer “Cheshmaritad” (“Truly”)and they might repeat it three times. It’s the way of meeting people on that day and the following one, rather than saying “Hello”.

The Day After Easter

The Day After Easter is a holiday, too. People don’t go to schools or works and they go to the cemeteries. It’s said, that it’s the day of remembering the dead and that’s why people go to the cemeteries on that day. However, usually people go to the cemeteries on Easter day, too, so that they can celebrate Easter with their relatives and be there close to their dead ones.

Easter is a big holiday, when all the relatives get together, which might only happen once a year on this day. People usually drink wine and light the candles on the graves. They also cut the Paschas and put them on the graves along with the red coloured eggs and some other things, which the dead loved to eat.

While you won’t see anything more than the graves in other countries, Georgia is  different in that, too. You will usually find some tables and benches beside the graves and that’s for the people who gather there to drink some wine and “share” it with the dead.

Photo gallery