Gather round, my furry friends and let us bask in the glorious day which is Easter. Because Romania is just exiting the Dark Ages and still trying to catch up to the modern world of Western standards, there Easter is predictably late. Last year, it was a few weeks late. This year, it was only one week late. As you can see, Romania is truly making progress raising it’s social standards. Why, if they can just somehow manage to get the date right in 2007, they may qualify for EU ascension.

And what constitutes Easter in Romania?

I’m glad you asked, Timmy. Like an aging man in pre-viagra days, it might build up a little excitement and mystery, but when the actual act happens there’s no much action to speak of and the Big Bang is over pretty quickly. Know what I mean, Timmy? Oh, I guess you’re too young.

On Saturday night, there was a crisp buzz in the air. Lights were on in most all the homes and people were up making noise, which is highly unusual past 9 or 10 in Braşov. It really is a fairly sleepy little town, so you can imagine the electrical pulses vibrating through out the city as people were awake past 10… past 11… What in tarnation?

And then it started.

The cars, cars, cars. Big cars, little cars, quiet cars, loud cars, black cars and white cars. The cars were driving, ever driving, driving onward, driving around, and generally looking for a place to park. Not two or three or ten cars. No! Cars by the hundreds encircling my block near the Saint Nicholas Church.

Althought, it was actually about 11:40pm, so the lighting was a little dark. Here’s what the church must have looked like according to a conceptual sketch.

But then, there lights and such… well, I figure you probably get the basic idea here.

Right. The flood of cars filled all the little side streets, sidewalks, parks,alleys, driveways, fire zones, unimproved lots, and all parked within 1/2 an inch of each other so the occupants had to crawl out through their sunroofs or hatchbacks.

You could hear the murmur and general hubbub of what must have been a couple thousand people, milling around anxiously outside the church spilling into Piaţa Unirii. Soon the church elders came out to greet their gathered fans. In true communist dictator style, they climbed up onto a makeshift stage and spoke out over one of those tinny public announcement systems from the 1940s.

The searching headlights of latecomers passing by and reflecting on the walls gave you an eerie feeling like you were a prison in a concentration camp as you could heard the nazi party leaders not far from you on a stage whipping up the SS troops in a fury just before unleashing them to destroy your ghetto.

It was, my American friends, unreal. Literally, like a uniformed guest of the gulag in Soviet times. Or possibly Saddam Hussein addressing a paid crowd of quivering listeners. A very strange display.

“Christ is arisen!”, shouts the priest. And the crowd yells some memorized line back as part of the dramatic ceremony. Of course, whether or not Jesus Christ was physically ressurected is a matter of some debate among Christian scholars because there are many authentic Christian gospels about Jesus, all of which are equally relevant to the handful approved by early church politicians.

Sorry to be the one to tell you, kids, but before the Romans institutionalized Christianity into a rigid set of money-making rituals involving buying candles and praying to false idols like saints, the original (or gnostic) christians believed in reincarnation, spirtual ressurection, and some other interesting things. It was the Romanization that threw away a fair portion of christian teaching and instead opted for incomplete thoughts combined with a lot of pagan rituals.

But why let honest evaluation of your faith stop you? Afterall, church has never been about truthful examination of life of Christ. It’s been far more profitable to tell people “Believe X” and the mass of zombies nod slowly, regurgitating: “Yes, X must be true.” Clink, clink.

Anyway. So the men in fancy costumes are on stage, talking into microphones, and performing various carnival acts to entertain the adult children. At some point, they declare it safe to eat and the pot luck begins. Oh, yes, some people really were fasting. Many bring food. So, when the man wearing the crown says you can start nibbling, the folks start chowing down. Some places hand out wine, too. I’m telling you, it’s a real party!

And, then… atat. It’s over. Go home.

No one works that Sunday. Stores are all closed, even the convenience stores. Restaurants do not serve food to any one. Even the police seem to have disappeared. The entire place just shuts down.

That’s the end of Easter in Romania. An hour or less in the middle of the night, where the priests put on a show, there’s a brief pot luck, maybe a little merlot (depending on your local priests’ personal drinking habits) and the whole thing is finished.

In America, my memory is quite a bit different. There’s no midnight mass that I recall. No, Easter is a full day event on Sunday. You get a good night’s sleep on Saturday (unless you’re in college, of course) and then wake up at a decent hour on Sunday. Parents either get up before the kids or just distract them, so that someone can go around hiding brightly colored eggs both indoors and outdoors.

The kids are handed a basket and the hunt begins. The younger toddlers stumble along slowly (don’t hide the eggs too hard for these tots) and are genuinely intrigued to be out finding colored eggs behind the bed or next to the flowers. Some of them hold up the eggs triumphantly, proud of themselves, excited to have found the egg that quivers precariously in their trembling hand, enthralled by its bright colors and seeking parental approval. It’s fairly cute to see their reaction.

Older kids tend to be much faster about it, running around and searching all over. You can hide eggs in really creative places for these quick witted youngsters. Normally, you arrange Easter so that these older kids are in small groups. Because they’re sibilings or cousins or neighbor friends, whatever. This creates a sense of competition among them and, boy, do they get all worked up. Everyone trying to collect the largest number of eggs the fastest, so they can be the best egg hunter around, basically to seek parental approval.

Once the eggs are all located, then it’s time for the candy. Kids get presented with another basket but this one isn’t empty. Inside are all manner of chocolate bunnies, marshmallow peeps, and a wide variety of jelly beans. Parents try in vain to prevent their children from overdosing on sugar, but the tykes just go hog wild and scarf down insane amounts of sweets. It’s great!

After that? Well, some folks hop into their cars and head to church for the second time (you know, the people who show up at church on Christmas and Easter for reasons they don’t really know except that their own parents used to do the same thing). The pastor puts on a nice little surmon about the wonders and joys of Jesus and everyone goes home again.

Most folks don’t bother with religious entertainment, but just get right on into brunch so they can beat the church-goers to the restaurants. Thus, the great and magical Easter Brunch begins. (You see, prieteni, Americans eat also, but not because they were artificially starving themselves.) Have some orange juice or champagne. Scarf down some tasty muffins, pastries, or toast with jam. Then it’s on to the eggs, french toast, pancakes, potatoes, or even sandwiches, pot roast, and burritos. Anything goes at Easter Brunch. You can have breakfast, lunch or both. Brunch.

Everyone heads home after that. The kids are near exhaustion from too much sugar. The adults are stuffed from brunch. It’s either time to sit around idly visiting with family or, if you’re not with a large family, then just take a nap. You while away the rest of the day visiting and trying to have a pleasant time.

Children tend to eat more candy every time they wake up from the sugar crash. Rednecks drink beer and have a barbeque. Restaurant workers count their tip money and clean up the dining area so they can go home. Recent immigrants talk to one another trying to figure out why the neighbor ended up with eggs in his yard and pondering how they got to be pink and purple. Chocolatiers roll in mountains of cash. Churches roll in mountains of cash. Politicians try to earn a view votes by appearing on TV with smiling children.

Everyone seems to love Easter. It’s all about chocolate rabbits and colored eggs. Jesus Christ? Yeah, for a select few. But even most church-goers focus on the pagan origins of the spring celebration, because deep down they know that Easter has little to do with Christian dogma.

But you know what they don’t have in America?

They don’t have the famous Romanian Paşte Tree.

Or the lesser known Paşte Bush.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 23rd, 2006 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Living, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.