Sfântu Gheorghe, the capital city of Covasna county in central Romania will host a 20-hour marathon for painting Easter eggs.
The even, organized for the second year in a row around the celebration of the Catholic Easter, will kick off at Mives House in the city on Friday, March 25, around 10 a.m. with anyone interested being able to attend. The marathon will end the next day around 5 a.m.
The competition’s organizers will provide participants with tens of traditional motifs of egg painting.
According to Guzsalyas, the organizer foundation, each motif has a certain meaning while conveying a particular message to the person to whom we offer the painted egg. “For instance, a man who gets an egg painted with an oak leaf will be strong, the flower motifs represent love and the hand or the horseshoe are guarding us,” Benko Eva told Agerpres.
The region is famous for preserving the old “lost path” ritual. Some say that if a girl is offering a painted egg on Easter to her former lover, then he will come back to her. Others say that the people who get such painted eggs will not get lost in the world.
Catholic and protestant believers will celebrate Easter at the end of this week. Eggs are mostly painted in red and are given to men who go spraying from a house to another on the second day of Easter. In the countryside, on the second day of Easter women and girls are not allowed to get out of the house; the ones caught on the street are sprayed all-over. Those who stay inside will be sprayed with fresh spring water or with perfume ‘not to waste’.
Sfântu Gheorghe is one of the oldest cities in Transylvania; the settlement was firstly attested in 1332. The majority of the city’s inhabitants are Hungarians.