Palm Sunday brings folklore and crafts fairs at Bucharest museums

The Romanian Peasant Museum is hosting its traditional Palm Sunday Fair (Targul de Florii), bringing craftsmen from all over the country to the event organized from Friday to Sunday, April 15 to April 17, at the location found on Soseaua Kiseleff 3. The National Village Museum is preparing a mixture of traditional religious Easter music and Romanian folklore.

Potters, blacksmiths, masons, furriers, confectioners, leatheriers, wooden spoon makers (rudari), painters, as well as weavers, knitters, and Easter egg drawing artists will bring wooden objects, ceramics, textiles, toys, musical instruments, ornaments, painted eggs, painted furniture and icons at the fair organized at the Romanian Peasant Museum.

The National Village Museum, located on Soseaua Kiseleff 28-30, is bringing well-known Romanian folklore and religious music performers: Valeria Arnautu, Catalin Maximiuc, Alisa Toma, Alin Suceveanu and Aida Ursu, from locations as Targoviste, Giurgiu, Botosani, Brasov, Neamt, Calarasi or Slobozia. An exhibit featuring icons (on wood or glass), painted eggs, ceramics and other Easter products, will also offer the possibility of purchasing these products.

One week before Easter, Palm Sunday or “Floriile” (“Flower Sunday”) takes place – an important Christian holiday dedicated to all those bearing flower names. On this day, “willow branches are taken to church, in order to be sanctified, and then they are placed in front of icons and above doors. They are used throughout the year to ward off evil spirits, as well as in adverse circumstances. When hail beats against windows, branches are put on the roof of a house to protect it from damage,” explains ethnologist Vlad Manoliu Furnica on the Romanian Peasant Museum’s website. Another interesting belief on this day is connected to the weather – it has been passed on from generation to generation that the way the weather is on Palm Sunday is the very way it will be at Easter.

Picture courtesy of the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum.