A Focus on Culture

Romania

Romanian traditions and customs

Romania is a country in eastern Europe. Romania is well known for its castles, the legend of Dracula and for its beautiful nature landmarks Romania also has many unique and beautiful traditions and customs which I will explain below.

Romania celebrates its Independence Day on the 1st of December each year. This marks the day that all the parts of Romania were united. They got rid of the German, Hungarian and Turkish rulers This day is celebrated like St Patrick's Day Everyone has the day off work and school as it’s a bank holiday. In Bucuresti the capital city, a big military parade is organized each year. The president is always present at this parade along with all the politicians. Smaller parades are organized everywhere, with traditional songs and dances It's also very common that people eat traditional foods like sarmale on this day The bear dance is a dance performed every New Year Men dress up as bears and they perform the bear dance. Other men and women hit some drums and blow whistles. During this dance the bear dies and then resurrects as a symbol of a new year that brings new opportunities. During this dance the people dressed up as bears hit the soil with their sticks as a symbol of fertile soil for the year ahead Another very important custom in the Romanian tradition is stealing the bride during her wedding. This happens at every wedding. This can be the highlight of a wedding as it can be very funny The bride can secretly or very publicly be stolen from the wedding The bride can be robbed by her bridesmaids or a group of her friends while sometimes a group of people can be paid to steal the bride Sometimes a group of men come into the wedding venue with fake guns and masks covering their face and steal the bride. This can be very frightening if you are not aware of this custom Then they bring the bride to a club, and they party for a while Or they can take her anywhere as long as the groom does not know where she is. Typically, it’s a place where the bride can have fun. After that they bring the bride back and the groom has to offer money/ gifts to get his bride back. After the group of people who have the bride negotiate and receive what they want, they will return the bride If they are not happy negotiations might take a while longer, but the bride is always returned to her groom and the party continues. Sometimes the groom’s best man dresses up as the bride and pretends to be the bride in hopes that the groom is tricked.