University students celebrated the Romanian and Bulgarian holiday of Martisor on Tuesday with traditional food, bracelets and charms at the Frist Campus Center.
The Bulgarian Undergraduate Society and the Romanian Students and Scholars Association co-sponsored the event, which featured Romanian music and the traditional dancing of the hora.
“Literally, Martisor means ‘Dear March,’” Gabriel Petrica ’13, the president of the RSSA explained.
The holiday is held annually on March 1 and celebrates the beginning of spring. In Bulgarian, it is known as “Martenitsa.”
“The main purpose of the event is to spread the culture of the Balkans by doing all these cool things,” Cristina Anastase ’14, social chair of the RSSA, said.
Foods offered included the traditional Bulgarian meats sujuk — a type of sausage — and lukanka — a salami — as well as various sauces and cheeses, though Petrica noted that “a lot of the food [was] from Olives.”
According to the holiday’s tradition, when one sees the first birds fly back from the south, “one is supposed to tie a bracelet to the first tree you see,” said Momchil Tomov ’14, a member of the BUS.
He also explained the legend behind the bracelets: A lost sister sent a note to her brother on the leg of a white bird, which died in battle just as it approached him. “The red and white symbolize the bird and the blood,” Tomov said.
Today, there is often an exchange of these red and white bracelets between the sexes. “What we do is craft these sort of lucky charm [bracelets] and boys offer them to girls ... and it’s really not good if you don’t do it,” Petrica said. He noted that in some areas of Romania, girls are expected to give the bracelets to their male friends as well.
“There is no such gender inequality in the Bulgarian holiday,” Tzvetelina Tzeneva ’11, former president of BUS, said. “Everyone gets their friends these things.”
The bracelets carry many different meanings today, including “health, love [and] all good things,” Tzeneva said.
According to the organizers, the festival is the main event at which the two Eastern European student groups join together to reach out to the larger Princeton community.
The organizations have been running a Martisor event in Frist for “at least four years,” said Tzeneva, who recalled attending as a freshman.
The organizations are most active as communities for the roughly 30 Romanian and 20 Bulgarian students involved, noted the organizers, though the groups also set up booths at Communiversity and the FreezeFest to give Princeton students a taste of their respective cultures.
One of the most interesting things about the holiday, Petrica said, is its celebration in both Romania and Bulgaria.
“It’s a weird thing because we are the only two countries with this holiday ... but we have different languages and don’t share other things,” he explained.
Passersby expressed enthusiasm for the event. “The food was amazing ... and I think it’s really important for our culture to learn about these things,” Ori Daniel ’12 noted.
Andrea deLeon ’14 was fitted for the traditional bracelet by Tomov and said she was excited to experience a taste of her friend’s Bulgarian culture.
About half of the visitors who stopped by were interested in learning more about the holiday, Petrica added.
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