Easter in Poland

When I have first found out, that I have to write an article about Easter in Poland, my question was: ‘Can I write a single sentence, that it’s pretty the same?’ Yes, dear readers. It’s pretty the same. But, since I was asked to describe Easter in Poland, here it is.

We are in general Catholics, so our preperation for the crusification and resurrection of Jesus Christ begin 40 days before the most important day in our religion. Ash Wednesday, as we call it, is the beginning for the lent. The tradition says that every Friday is the day without meat. According to the rules of the religion, during lent we have no weddings, no huge parties. With those rules we spend almost 40 days, till the day in question comes.

And here it comes. The most important days. Great Friday and Great Saturday are the only days in a year in Catholic church that we don’t celebrate any Mass. Then we gather during special celebration to get through the death of Jesus Christ. We wake up very early on Saturday morning to prepare the eggs the same way you, Bulgarians, do! We go to the church to holy our food. We put in the baskets: eggs, bread, sausages, salt and pepper, Easter lambs etc. Everything has its meaning. For example eggs are the symbol of life, bread is the basic food in our life as well as in the religion. You can go also to visit the grave of Jesus Christ. From the same grave that Sunday morning will be empty. We believe that during the night Jesus resurrected, so on Sunday morning at 6 am we celebrate special Mass, announcing that Jesus Christ in alive. After that we meet with whole family during very big breakfast. We eat Polish special soup called żurek, we prepare different types of eggs, like eggs with mushrooms, we prepare also special cake called mazurek wielkanocny. It’s very sweet but I really, really like it. After the breakfast, we go together for a long walk (we eat so much that we have to :)). The most interesting day during Easter is Monday, because as the tradition says, every girl has to be wet. All boys go from one home to the other and put water on all the girls that are not married. This whole process is supposed to bring happiness and luck with boys! So every girl should be wet, if not she won’t be able to find a perfect husband!

That would be unfortunately the end of celebrations of Easter in Poland. And how do you celebrate Easter in Bulgaria? Is it really the same?