Love is in the air, but are you a Valentine or Dragobete?

Valentine’s Day caught on quite quickly in post-communist Romania and has become yet another successful US export, just like jeans, English expressions in local teenagers’ slang or the more recent craze for vampire love stories. BR takes a look at how the loved-up can celebrate February 14 across Bucharest and Romania, while also offering some information about its local equivalent, Dragobete.

Corina Dumitrescu

Today’s youth in Romania may remember with fondness how they were encouraged in their elementary school years by English teachers and textbooks to shyly ask their crush, “Will you be my Valentine?” The story behind Saint Valentine’s Day has been told and re-told so many times, that almost everyone knows at least one version of the legend about the Christian martyr Valentine, who died in ancient times for his religious beliefs, writing “From your Valentine” in his last letter, addressed to a mysterious woman.

While some seem to have readily embraced the idea of a celebration of love, others have purposefully rejected it, arguing that love is something that should be expressed on a regular basis, not one day a year. More patriotic types might shun Valentine’s Day as an export, on account of the existence of a Romanian love celebration, Dragobete (or Dragobetele in its articulated form), on February 24.

Laura Jiga Iliescu, from the Constantin Brailoiu Institute of Ethnography and Folklore, explains that Dragobetele is also known as the “Head of Spring” or the “Patron of Birds”. The day coincides with the Christian Orthodox holiday “Aflarea capului Sfantului Ioan” (“Finding the head of St. John”) and the symbolism behind the word “head”, as in “beginning” or “leader”, may be connected with the above-mentioned meaning of the celebration. At the end of the 19th century, in isolated areas across the country, Iliescu says Dragobetele consisted of searching for spring flowers in forests, and may have had “premarital functions”. Romantic legends say that those who met on this day, while picking snowdrops in the forest, were meant to be together.

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Ioana Popescu, researcher at Muzeul Taranului Roman (the Romanian Peasant’s Museum), connects the celebration of Dragobete to the rebirth of nature and dawning of a new time. “The tradition does not have the same date (February 24) everywhere. It is also known as ‘Head of Spring’, and the character Dragobete is known either as the son of Baba Dochia, or as the brother-in-law of Lazar (who died longing for pies). The custom did not have the importance that some try to attach to it nowadays. It is true that it fits the current trend of playful ceremony or spectacle for the young and thus seems to be an equivalent to Valentine’s Day,” says Popescu. Moreover, she adds that the media buzz created around this borrowed celebration, although excessive, proves “the current need to integrate a holiday for the young into the current context of globalization and secularization”. The exaggeration of the role of Dragobete is regarded as “a means of our joining the ranks of the rest of the world”, a not so positive strategy, Popescu suggests.

Three years ago, the Romanian Peasant’s Museum even organized a competition between the two characters, Valentine and Dragobete, with the hope that “our festivity would become emblematic and stop the surplus of Dragobete”. Although it did not work out that way, “this trend is already naturally declining”. True enough, on account of the financial crisis or perhaps due to changing fads, it seems that Valentine’s and Dragobete are gaining less attention than in previous years.

Other sources, meanwhile, point out that the local celebration of Martisor (March 1, marking the first day of spring) may more accurately be assimilated to Valentine’s Day. According to tradition, women in Romania on March 1 are given an amulet or good-luck charm, which must be tied with a red and white string (more important than the amulet itself), to bring health and good luck. This tradition spread from the countryside to urban areas at the turn of the twentieth century, Iliescu says. The first people to furnish their daughters and wives with such trinkets were wealthy gentlemen, since, back then, connected to the red and white strings usually were small objects of gold and silver. And gold and silver pendants remain popular Martisor gifts.  Regardless of the denomination and the straitened times, the celebration of love continues to play its part in a globalizing society, seeking lost traditions.

From the local corner flower shop to five-star hotels, Valentine’s means profit

To local merchants, the appearance of Valentine’s Day in the local landscape is another source of profit. The traditional yearly fairs that crowd the Universitate area and old town center, previously in the run-up to March 1 and March 8 (Women’s Day), now start earlier, with their usual array of silver and gold-plated jewelry, stuffed animals of various sizes, flowers and any heart or love-bearing symbol one could ever conceive of, now making an appearance as the winter subsides. A fair with various Valentine’s paraphernalia is taking place until February 14 at the Universitate subway passage, towards the Intercontinental. Named “Amore, Love, Iubire”, it offers everything from chocolate, heart-shaped pillows, rose-perfumed soap, massage oils and candy to semi-precious stones. A mixture between Valentine’s and its local cousin Dragobete, Dragolentin is a festival dedicated to love, from February 14-24 at Casa de Cultura a Studentilor (Student’s Culture House) on Calea Plevnei 61.  

Online flower shops are also a blooming business on such occasions. Floridelux.ro estimates that Romanians will spend over EUR 40,000 on online flower orders on Valentine’s Day. The average value of orders will reach an estimated EUR 70, a 50 percent increase compared to the average throughout the rest of the year. Moreover, orders began as early as January 25 according to Marius Dosinescu, business development manager at FlorideLux.ro, who added that the company expects EUR 4,000 worth of sales on Valentine’s Day, a 150 percent increase compared to last year.

If music be the food of love for you, there are many options. These include the now traditional Directia 5 (a local rock band, with almost twenty years of history on the Romanian music scene) concert at Sala Palatului, on February 14, starting at 19.00. Tickets cost RON 70-150. On Dragobete, however, another local group, Taxi, will hold a concert at Jukebox Club. Entrance costs RON 30.

The group, although it plays numerous genres, could be included in the soft-rock category; however, their orientation towards satire in their lyrics would recommend some Romanian language knowledge. Jukebox Club has also announced that it has dedicated the entire month to lovers and, on Valentine’s Day, raffle prizes will be up for grabs while cover band Jukebox gives a concert.

Five-star hotels across Bucharest bring a more luxurious twist to the celebration of love. The Athenee Palace Hilton offers a four-course menu including wine for RON 195/person, starting at 20.00. Radisson Blu Hotel is hosting Be My Valentine @ Rad on Valentine’s Day, charging RON 180 per person at its Prime Steaks and Seafood Restaurant, starting at 18.30. Caffe Cita and Le Bistro of the same hotel cost RON 120 per person on the same occasion, while Dark Bla Bar and Bla Lounge Bar are celebrating Ladies’ Night. Carol Parc Hotel promises romantic dinners starting at RON 163 until February 15. Howard Johnson is putting on a St. Valentine’s Love-Sharing Dinner Menu at Avalon restaurant, at the price of RON 300 per couple, and promises visitors to its Japanese restaurant Benihana that “this Valentine’s Day, you will fall in love again with our Teppanyaki Menu”, for the price of RON 375 per couple. Howard Johnson is also offering romantic packages at its Health Club, with the Soul Mates couple massage costing RON 150 per couple. JW Marriott brings Love with a Twist on Valentine’s, with the “Red Is For Italian Passion” lover’s menu at 280 RON per couple, “As You Like It” live cooking stations at the cost of RON 190 per two and the Matters of the Heart section promising live piano classical music for RON 32 per person.

Valentine’s is also a pretext for giving, as is the case at the Valentine’s Day Charity Ball, by the Blue Heron Foundation. Taking place on February 12, at Ghika Palace, with over 250 guests, the Blue Heron Foundation aimed to offer 50 scholarships worth EUR 1,000 each, to deserving underprivileged students, through the fifth edition of the Valentine’s Day Charity Ball, with the aid of donors from Romania and the US. One of the highlights of the evening was the Forget-Me-Not Award. Previous winners were Dinu Patriciu, Camelia Sucu, Princess Margaret and Anastasia Soare. This year, Steven and Valeria van Groningen received the humanitarian award “for their sustained efforts to improve the life conditions of underprivileged children”, said Mike Costache, strategy and fundraising director of the Blue Heron Foundation.

corina.dumitrescu@business-review.ro