Re-release Orthodox Easter in Georgia.

In this episode, Tom chats to Baia from Red Fedora Diary about Georgian Easter Traditions.

They Discuss:

• How Orthodox Easter is different from other Easter celebrations
• Common traditions during Easter
• What food to expect during Easter and the importance of the fasting menu
• and more.....

Join our special Easter Supra + Wine Tour: https://fb.me/e/1WADo7bR2

Follow Baia's adventures:

https://www.redfedoradiary.com/easter-in-georgia/

https://www.facebook.com/redfedoradiary

https://www.instagram.com/redfedoradiary/

Easter in Georgia is a unique and vibrant celebration that diverges from the Western traditions in several ways. This episode of the Tbilisi Podcast dives deep into how Georgians observe Easter, starting with the 40-day Lent period leading up to the holiday. Baya, our guest and a local expert, shares how the Orthodox Christian calendar influences the timing of Easter, making it fall later than in many Western cultures. We uncover the fascinating customs that mark this sacred occasion, including visits to cemeteries, where families honor their deceased loved ones, and the preparation of special foods. Tom and Baia explore the symbolic significance of red-dyed eggs, traditional Easter cakes, and the communal feasting that characterizes the celebrations. Listeners are treated to a delightful mix of personal anecdotes and insightful commentary, revealing how these traditions foster a sense of community and connection among Georgians during this festive time.

As the conversation unfolds, we learn about the colorful traditions that accompany the Easter festivities, such as the practice of growing wheat grass as a centerpiece for the holiday table, and the way families come together to create their famous red eggs, using natural dyes instead of artificial ones. Baia takes us through the timeline of events from Good Friday, or as it's known in Georgia, Red Friday, to the joyous Easter Sunday, emphasizing the importance of family gatherings and the unique ways that Georgians express their faith and heritage. The episode beautifully contrasts the solemnity of Lent with the joyous celebrations of Easter, offering listeners an enriching perspective on how culture shapes religious practices.

Finally, the episode wraps up with Baia discussing a lesser-known Easter tradition from the Guria region, where a kind of rustic rugby, known as Lelo Burti, takes place. This lively game not only showcases local customs but also serves as a fun way for communities to come together in celebration. This episode is a delightful exploration of Georgia's Easter traditions, filled with warmth, humor, and a genuine love for the rich tapestry of Georgian culture.

Takeaways:

• Easter in Georgia is celebrated differently, following the Julian calendar, so the dates vary from the West.
• The week leading up to Easter involves a 40-day Lent, where many Georgians fast from animal products.
• On Good Friday, known as Red Friday, families color eggs red using natural dyes like onion peels.
• Easter Sunday is all about family gatherings, special meals, and the fun tradition of cracking red eggs.
• The Monday after Easter is dedicated to visiting cemeteries, celebrating loved ones who have passed away.
• Georgian Easter cakes are unique, with a distinct round shape, and there's a friendly competition over who makes the best one.

Links referenced in this episode:

• foodfuntravel.com
• expathub.ge
• eatthis tours.com
• redfedoradiary.com

This is the Tbilisi Podcast, covering life, travel and more in the country of Georgia. Brought to you by foodfuntravel.com expathub.ge and eat this tours.com.

In this episode, Easter traditions in Georgia. We talk about everything from Lent through to Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.

There's going to be some feasting, there's going to be some visits to cemeteries, and of course, there's going to be cake. Okay, hello everybody. It's Tom from the Tivolisi Podcast. Back again for another episode about Georgia.

And today I am talking to Baya from redfordoradiary.com she's here in the studio with me to talk about Easter traditions. But I think before we jump into the topic, Bia, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself and let the listeners know what they should know.

Hi Tom, thanks for having me here. So I'm a travel blogger and writer from Tbilisi, Georgia.

I was born here, raised here, and spent most of my time living here, except for the four years that I did my bachelor's in Prague, Czech Republic.

All right.

Being Georgian, I guess, helps, helps you.

Create good Georgia content because I have the benefit of providing more local insight than other travel bloggers who travel here or stay here for an extended time of.

Yeah, nice.

So I mean, of course we're talking about Easter traditions today, and this means that you will have done Easter here many, many more times than me and much more authentically than I have.

So I'm really excited to find out some more about exactly what you'd be doing at Easter and maybe what other Georgians do and if there's any variations across the country or any other. So let's start. Will, let's start with you. What do you think we should talk about first? What's the most interesting thing to do with Easter?

I think the first thing we should talk about, like an introduction and say that Easter in Georgia is a bit different from the Western Easter traditions and calendar wise as well, because Georgia is an Orthodox country and we follow Julian calendar, which means that some of the dates fall into a different time period than in Europe, for example, or in the West. So this means that every year Easter changes and basically it's a week and a half or two weeks after the Western Easter. It's a family tradition.

It's mostly most important religious celebration in the whole country. So everyone gets together, celebrates the resurrection of the Christ and rebirth and life itself and also respect that by going to the cemeteries.

There are not that many traditions, like, compared, if we compare it to like Christmas and New Year traditions. But there are some that are very specific for the Easter and for those four days that we celebrate Easter.

So do you have an idea of the sort of the schedule? Is it a schedule? Is it like on the Friday you do one sort of activity, on the Saturday you do other things?

Yes, we do have a schedule and we do have like a timeframe. What you do before Easter, for example, the Easter usually starts the prior to easter is like 40 day lent.

So those who are religious, they feast and they don't eat any animal products. No meat, no dairy, no nothing. No fish even.

And you see this, like in menus here when I first came to Georgia, as like fasting menu.

Yeah.

And then of course you're like, oh, okay, Lent.

It makes sense now because there are other days, like beyond the religious, like fasting days. There are like couple of days, usually like Wednesday and Friday, that people also fast just normally every week.

Oh, wow. Like don't eat anything at all?

No, they don't eat anything. Animal products. Okay.

Yeah. So just the regular sort of things that are not supposed to be eaten. So yeah, you're gonna be eating mushrooms and.

Yes, vegetables.

But you do eat cheese. Is that considered an animal product?

No, you can't do that either.

No. Okay.

So no khachapuris.

That's very sad. On Fridays, no khachapuri and no khinkali, unless that's the potato one.

Not everyone does it. But some people who are very religious and follow the rules. They do. But obviously it's not the whole country doing it.

So it does mean that for tourists who are coming here who are vegetarian, there's almost always this fasting menu in restaurants that's always going to be vegetarian food. So it's very easy to select dishes.

That's quite handy because we have a special even word for it. Like samarkva means like fasting. So there are no animal products even. You can find chocolates and ice creams and what.

So it's not that hard to survive, which in my opinion is a bit absurd because if you're fasting and you're taking like you are saying no to some certain things to clean your body and to clean your soul, you can say no to those things. But that's My opinion. Sure.

All right. So, yeah, okay.

So that's the first part before Easter is Lent, which, of course, is similar to what we'd have in Western Christianity, but maybe the fasting is slightly differently done or.

Yeah, I'm not a very religious person. I've never fasted in my life, so I'm.

Well, you get pretty hungry and, you know, I struggle with it.

Yeah, I guess so. But, I mean, I've seen people and my family members have done it, but that's not something that I stand for, so I've never done it.

Fair enough. You know, food first. I do agree with that.

Being hungry makes me angry. I get headaches and I'm just grumpy. So.

Yep. No, fair enough. It's hard to concentrate. If I don't eat enough protein in a day, I find it hard to concentrate.

So, yeah, I can agree with you on that for sure.

So if you're not fasting, then you shouldn't worry about it. But then at least, like two, three weeks before we usually start growing a grass on the plate.

This kind of resembles and symbolizes a new life Jesus Christ gave us with his resurrection. So what we do usually is that we get a handful of wheat seeds.

We take cotton pads and wet it in the water, put them on the plate, and sprinkle those wheat seeds on it and let it sit on the window counter to get a daylight and let the grass grow. So it takes, like, depends on the wheat seeds, but it takes around, like, from anywhere from one week to three weeks. So you get to time it right.

And also, like, not start it too late or not start too early so that the grass is greener and looks fresher. You need to balance it out, the timing.

And so you're waiting on. Then it gets to the actual Easter weekend and this grass will have grown. And that's.

Yeah.

And that's basically a part of decoration at the table because we put the red eggs around it and it just a beautiful decoration at the radish or red X. Red eggs.

Red eggs as in chicken eggs. But red ones.

Red ones. We don't color them in different colors. We color them in red.

That's also another tradition of the Orthodox, because for us, it kind of symbolizes the blood during the crucification of the Christ. So we color them in red instead of all the different colors. Blues or yellows.

Yeah. So just red.

It should be like bloody red. Like, the strongest red you get is the better. So it's always a hit or miss. Depends on what kind of Solutions you use for the red candy, red egg.

So in western culture, we have chocolate eggs at EAs. These are actual chicken eggs. Like real eggs but painted red?

Yes.

Do you have chocolate as well or no, you don't really do it.

We have like usual chocolate bars, but not chocolate eggs. Easter bunny is not a thing here. Easter hunting for the eggs is not a thing here. But we do have other fun thing. I'll tell later.

Yeah, sure.

All right.

Yeah. Tease us with something else for later on. For sure. Sounds good.

One week before Easter Sunday, we also celebrate Bzoba or Palm Sunday, A movable date like Easter, because it needs to be right one week before the Easter Sunday. It also makes the first day of the holy week. Vza is a Georgian word for a box shrub.

And on this day, one family member goes to a church and brings a blessed box branches back home. This custom dates back to when people greeted Christ when he entered Jerusalem by scattering palm trees branches in front of him.

And over the time, procuring those palm branches in different climate countries got complicated. So that's why we use bugs here, because it's easier to cultivate and harvest them.

Yeah, that makes sense. There's not a lot of palm trees going on in northern Georgia.

No.

So just potumi at a stretch. That's about it. Yeah.

And a few one that I saw on the way here, people have started.

To plant them here, but it's not really the right climate for it.

So it's not weird. Yeah, no, definitely not.

No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, substitutions makes sense.

Yeah. So now we've come up to the actual, like, Easter days, basically. So the Friday is the most important day for us in terms of the Easter celebrations.

You call it Good Friday, but we call it Red Friday. And this is the day when we color the chicken eggs red color. So the way we do it is we don't use any chemical dyes.

We basically use onion, pe and mudderroots. Or it's one or the other or a combination of both. And every family has their own technique and tradition of doing it in their own houses.

The only rule is to do it before sunset. So the Friday is a busy day doing the colorings.

So it's like the whole family, kids, everybody join in with this?

Not really. Not really. It's not a fun activity. For example, my family, it's usually my mom who does the red colors.

Before her, it was my grandma, just because it's not a, like, generation thing, but she just got the most bloody red color X in the End. So it was the prettiest. And she's good at it. Yeah, she was good at it.

All right.

But now my mom does it and she always gets a mixture of different colors because she can't find the technique her mom used to make. And my mom usually gets all the ingred on Thursday. She soaks the red onion pills and the mother roots.

And there is also like, one thing that I want to point out is that you'll see in the markets the already crushed mother roots or the powder of the mother root, but we typically don't use it because it's not that great color and it could be like a fake one. So we usually get the actual roots and crush it ourselves. And then she leaves it overnight in a water soaking so that the colors come out.

And then she boils them on Friday, the water without eggs. And then once it boils, then she lets it sit to cool down.

And once the water is already cooled down and cold, basically she puts the eggs and then she reduced the whole boiling with the eggs.

Okay, yeah. And it just stains the shells?

Yeah, it stains the shells. And if it cracks the shell, sometimes you get this like marbly boiled egg whites as well.

All right, cool.

So and then what we do is we don't eat the eggs straight away. We wait for the Sunday because that's when we do all the dinners and things with the egg, basically.

Okay, yep. So this is on Friday, the cooking of the eggs is happening.

Yes, yes, yes. Red Friday.

Red Friday, yeah. Okay, got it.

Yeah.

And is there anything else that's going on on Friday?

Not really. Not really. And it's just usual house chores, cleaning, dinner, nothing else. And it's a public holiday from Friday all the way to Monday.

We have a public holiday.

Yeah.

So everything is like every governmental institution or any private business is closed. Banks are closed. Maybe some of them might have a different working schedule, but usually it's closed as it is a public holiday.

Shops and transport are open, but depends on the days. And also they might have a change schedule as well.

And this also means that during that time a lot of people who live and have relatives in the regions, they leave the city. So the city is a bit of a deserted and it's very empty and very quiet. It's one of the perfect times to be in Tbilisi, actually.

A lot less traffic.

Yeah, a lot less traffic. Very quiet. It's an ideal time.

And also before the Friday or a couple of days earlier and sometimes even a week earlier, you probably notice Easter cakes in the shops. Yes, it's when the Easter cake madness started. Georgina.

Madness. Everyone just gets into it.

Everyone just gets into it.

And my Facebook news feed is usually filled up with questions like who has the best Easter cake to buy and where to buy the best Easter cake and where to get the Easter cake. We have a different kind of Easter cake than probably the Western world does. It's usually like more Eastern European and Slavic Pascal that we call.

It's a round shape, but as a tall. And it's not a shortcake or a buttercake.

Like a top hat.

Yes. Tall cylindrical rim, basically.

All right.

And it's usually sprinkled with sugar powder or sometimes like an egg white glazing. Sometimes they do like chocolate. And everyone does different glazings, but inside it typically is raisins, but. But some of them also do dry fruits.

There's also a possibility of having cottage cheese pasta as well. It's different.

Yeah.

We at home bake it, and my mom has several recipes with yeast, without yeast, with the cottage cheese, with dry fruits and all sorts. So every year we're trying to do something different, and sometimes every year we try to keep the tradition of having one or the other or both.

Depends on what we feel like that year.

Does your mum make the best Easter cake, or is that a controversial statement?

It depends.

Like, for example, I don't like the raisin ones, so she makes one for me without the raisins, but I think she makes one of the best cottage cheese one.

Nice. All right. So, you know, when do I get an invite to come and eat cake with you guys? Sounds interesting. All right.

Yeah, yeah. Last year I actually baked it, and I have a video of it that I forgot to cut it out and post on social. So probably I'll do it this year.

Yeah. All right. I'm looking for the post.

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

But you can also buy these cakes because obviously I don't know how to make them. I'm not gonna be able to make it at home.

The only thing is you need a special cake form to shape in a.

Way, like a mold.

Mold. Yeah, special mold for it. But otherwise you can buy it everywhere. That's what I sell. Like madness. It's everywhere.

These are for sale all over the place.

And even after the Easter, you can still see them. Leftovers, as we can call it, after the Easter. So you can always get for the entire month. Basically, you can eat the Easter cakes here, right?

Yeah. So there's not gonna be any difficulty finding an Easter cake if you're here as A tourist for just a couple of weeks.

No.

So it's 16th of April this year is Easter.

Yes.

Yeah. So for anyone listening to this, we're bringing this episode out a little bit before that, so you have time.

But if you're here and you can see a bunch of top hat sort of hype cakes floating around, you know, go buy some Easter cake, go try it out.

Yeah. It also is different by size, by price. It's all sorts of things.

Like there are cheap ones, there are expensive ones, there are like nicely put in the box. Some of them are in plastic bags. I mean you can find all sorts. Yeah.

Madness is literally every option you could possibly want. It's been crazy.

I mean, you know like when you get like in Western world, like Christmas decorations up in, I don't know, November, October, it's similar thing for the Easter cakes here, like the beginning of April probably, or ico, maybe even earlier or maybe later in March, it would be all like Easter cakes.

Yeah. Three or four weeks before the Easter cakes are already coming out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Something about that.

Growing up with consumerism in England, the chocolate Easter eggs were out way more than a month before. So I'm used to this. The shops will start any trend as early as they can. So no surprise. But yeah. Cool.

Well, yeah, anyone who's arrived at this point, then if they're listening to this, when it comes out, there's going to be Easter cakes, look out for them.

Yes.

So currently we have boiled eggs and cake.

So. So we've talked about the red eggs and the Easter cake.

Yeah.

And we basically moved to the Saturday. This day is for the religious people and who are believers.

They usually spend it at church and they attend a massive mass where our patriarch reads the prayers.

Unfortunately, he's very old and elderly and has some health problems and probably sometimes he does like a short version or reads out a short prayer and then someone else continues during the night. So this is called Litonioba.

In every church in Tbilisi, religious people go and spend the night and wait for the holy fire to be brought from the Jerusalem so that it reflects and it symbolizes that the Christ has resurrected for sure.

Yes.

During these and this sort of thing.

In a couple of other places they still did and they had like 2 meter distance marked in the churches and then some cities, I think it was kutaisi that did, like in the outside courtyard of the. Of the church. But then they started sharing this spoon.

And the answer from priests were that it's Easter, it's a miracle and it's religious, so no one's gonna get sick and the virus won't be transferred from one another. All right, well, I don't know that.

Not gonna get into that discussion.

Yeah, definitely not.

Is there a significance behind this sharing? And what are they sharing? They're sharing like wine or.

It's a wine and a bread especially.

Okay, so it's similar to Catholicism in that sense.

Yep. So then that's the Saturday night and the Sunday morning.

And then on Sunday, actually when it's an Easter Sunday, we Georgians don't say hello to each other, but we say like a happy Easter relevant in Georgian, which is. Which means Christ has risen. And then there is a response from another person saying, which is he has risen indeed. So no hellos, no happy Easters.

We say kristi akhtska. And then you get the response esmertat akska.

All right.

This is also the day when we crack the eggs, the red eggs that we boiled. And um, so as I said, there is no Easter hunting in Georgia.

So instead we'd crack those red colored eggs in the morning when we wake up and we have a breakfast, basically. So it's not a like family tradition where everyone sits around the table. It's more of a like a fun thing to do.

When you see a family member, you say like crack the egg and you choose the strongest egg by wrecking it on your first two teeth. So if you like the sound of it and you think it's the strongest, you choose one and then you crack both ends of the egg on each other.

So you hold it in your palm and another person or family member just wrecks it on the sink.

And whose ever egg surv is the winner.

Yes. And gets all the cracked eggs.

They get to keep them. They get the shells or something.

They can keep them, they can eat them or they can distribute, whatever. It's just a fun thing to do.

We have a similar game in England, but not for Easter, but in the autumn time we play this game called conkers, which is like horse chestnuts. I don't know if you even have those trees here.

We do have the horse chestnuts.

Yeah. You put them on a string and you have them each on a string next to each other. Get turns to fire yours at the other person's on the string.

And whoever breaks first, they're the Loser. And then traditionally. And I mean, if you're.

If you're very cheeky, you're then allowed to wrap your, like, hit your conquer over the other person's hand as a punishment for losing.

Wow.

Which is. Yeah. Sort of mean. I don't know if they let you do that in schools anymore, but, you know, when I grew up, they did.

It's a different world, so a bit crazy.

When we were kids, we would definitely take those eggs at school after the holidays, and we would, like, compete with each other in classmates. Whose egg's gonna be strongest?

And there is also, like, a wooden egg as a decoration in pretty much every family, every Georgian family, just to put it out on the Easter decorations. And some people would sneak in those, like, wooden eggs, and they would, like, cheat using them.

So we were always, like, looking out and making sure that no one was cheating. And, yeah, we were coming back with a lot of eggs or no eggs at all.

Wow. Nice.

Yeah.

All right. So there's got to be some more food, though, I'm guessing. You said it. It's not quite like a super. It's different from a super on Easter or something.

Yeah, it's. I mean, the red eggs and the cracking eggs is not like a soup.

No, of course. Yeah. That's specifically Easter.

We do have a special food for Easter that's called tchakapuli. It's a meat stew made originally by lamb, but because Georgians outgrow eating lamb, they started substituting it with chicken or beef meat or veal.

Veal is a popular option I've seen. And even mushroom for those people who don't want to eat meat.

Definitely. Mushroom one is really good. I sometimes even prefer it over the meat one. The main ingredients here are tarragon and plums. Green plums.

Wine normally as well, I'm told. Is that in the sauce, people put white wine?

Wine, yeah, white wine, yeah. And a bit of vinegar and a lot of herbs. Fresh herbs, because it's also like spring meat. So spring meal.

So a lot of fresh herbs and fresh fruit is also in season. So that's the whole idea of cacapuli. And it has a very distinctive taste.

Yeah, I've never tasted anything like it anywhere else. Very fragrant, very herbal. Very powerful sort of intense herbal flavor.

Yeah, savory, sometimes sweet, sometimes salty. It's a mixture of everything. And the main ingredients, as I said, is tarragon and green palms.

But sometimes, as the Easter is closer to the date on markets, you can see the prices increase on those green plums very high. So one time I've even seen 99 gel for a kilo.

What? No one's gonna pay that. That's crazy.

Yeah, but I mean, people did. Because you need those green plums and chakapoule, like they are the main ingredient.

And I mean you don't need a kilo, you just need like a 200 gram cup or something like that.

But what we do at home is when they are in season, we do preserve them for the next year so that we always have them in a way and we don't buy them in.

The form of Kamali, the plum sauce. Yeah.

So you can use different from this? No, it's just the whole plum fruit. We preserve them.

Oh, like pickled. Pickled pickles?

Yeah, kind of pickled. Yeah.

Yeah.

Not in salt, not in anything. So it doesn't give any extra taste and it preserves its own soury taste, whatever it had.

Yeah.

And that's the main meal of the day, actually. And then we also have boiled ham pieces. We usually buy it ourselves and boil it at home. You can do it or you can do it already pre cooked.

It's also an option.

Is this like ratcha ham or is it just international style ham or kind.

Of a ratchet ham? But not like very smoked, because ratchet ham has a very distinctive smoke taste. But I would say it's similar to it.

Just a typical ham, not an international one. And then that's basically it for the dinner. And then we have like other like, I mean, the typical things that you have to have on Supra.

But other than that, you are welcome to have anything you want to have, like khachapuri, prali, salads.

So it will be a full feast in the end.

Yes.

It's just a few dishes that are essential and everyone has to have. And the rest is like. Like choice.

Yeah, definitely. And then the dessert you have either you want to bake a cake, you can, but mostly you have the Easter cake you eat.

Of course there are any wine traditions associated with Easter. There was one family that I know, they have their winery and they reserve one small quivery for the church.

And at Easter they open that quivery and they give the wine from that quivery to the church as like I guess a tithe or whatever word you'd use in Georgian for this.

It's not very typical though. And it's not very typical to wine. It can be done the same way to the food as well. Because we give out to a church.

Because then the church gives it to the people in need. So it's like a donation, basically. We don't have any specific traditions regarding wine, as far as I know, in terms of the Easter celebrations.

Just the usual. You're gonna drink some wine with dinner?

Yes.

And there'll be toasts. I'm guessing we're not cutting any of that out of Easter?

No, obviously.

No, no, obviously. It's a stupid question, but I thought I'd check just in case. I know Easter is the one day where we don't do toasts because, you know.

Or we have specific toasts. Maybe you have specific toasts for Easter.

We have toasts for Easter and we have specific toast for the next day, Monday, because that's the day when we pay respect to our deceased family relatives. Monday is a day when we go to the cemeteries and that's where we do the toast and also bring wine and a bit of snacks.

I know that sounds very strange, but bear with me.

I think a few countries do this sort of thing. Mexico does this. They go and celebrate Day of the Dead and they visit the family members.

Who have passed very rare countries does. But when I told this to my. My friends in Europe, they always get like weird faces. That's why I'm saying just in case.

So that actually became a tradition when we became part of Soviet Union, because during the Soviet times, going to the church was prohibited and there was no religion. So people needed to pay respect to the relatives and pray for them.

So they started going to the cemeteries and lighting up the candles and praying for them.

And over the time, it turned into a tradition of going to the cemetery, bringing a bottle of wine and a bit of snacks and the red eggs that we boiled on Friday. And it's kind of a spending time with your relative. It's not a morning day. It's a celebration. So.

So if you go to the cemetery during Monday, you won't see any family members crying or being sad. It's a celebration because the Easter is a celebration of life and rebirth, basically. So that's the main thing that happening on Monday.

And we also have the special toast that people do on Mondays when we visit graveyards and cemeteries. But it also. Toast, as you know, is kind of like very creative and at the moment and being in the moment and expressing yourself.

Our toasts are not like written out, so you have the idea, but you do it differently every time.

So the theme is to celebrate the ancestors mainly. And then everyone, of course, every family will have their own way and every person will have their own way of Doing that.

Yes.

And it's also hoping or expressing the hope that they are in whatever universe or in whatever lifetime, they are very well there and they are well cared, basically.

And also, like going to the cemetery on Mondays and celebrating with the past relatives also means that we keep the hope that our next generation, children and grandchildren will keep the tradition and come to our graves and tell us that the Christ has resurrected and the life goes on and celebrates with us at some point.

Yeah, the cycle continues.

Yeah, definitely. That's basically it for the Monday.

The only thing that I want to note is that the traffic will be insane, and it always is insane on Mondays, even though.

So I said earlier that a lot of people leave the city, but there are also a lot of people who stay in the city and their relatives are buried here in a couple of cemeteries that we have. So it's always a massive traffic nearby those cemeteries. So there will be some public transport working, obviously.

But it's a nice way of understanding and going and seeing their local tradition at some point.

I mean, is it sort of something that tourists are actually allowed to turn up to these cemeteries and see what's happening? Or is that. I don't know, because maybe that'd be disrespectful.

No, no, no. I mean, there are some families that overdo the whole thing. Yeah.

I mean, some families just do a huge Supra at the cemetery and they stay there for the whole day, which I really don't respect. And it's not keeping the tradition. It's just something very different.

And because of that, they have the bigger cemeteries because they need the shade. And if it's, you know, like rains or whatnot and tables and branches. So sometimes it looks very.

The cemetery is set up for guests for Easter, so they actually even have, like permanent installations because they expect so many people to visit and do this.

Yes. Which is very strange and weird for me.

Well, I mean, it's interesting. If people are going to go and do this anyway, then why not have places set up for them to use so that it's more sanitary and everything.

Definitely. But what I'm saying is not to overdo it in a way, but I don't think that tourists being there would be disrespectful.

You would probably be invited in some of the graves and would be offered a glass of wine and a piece of Khachapuri and probably like a red egg, so why not?

So bring a bottle of wine to the cemetery and meet some people and learn about some cultural traditions.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, all right, it would.

Be a weird Monday spending on a cemetery, but it could be an experience.

Yeah, it would be a very different tourist experience from the usual things that people do. So I don't know if I'm going to do it or not, but yeah, if you're brave and you want to go and meet some new people, then who knows? Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that's it. So we've gone through Lent, we've gone through Red Friday. Red Friday for red eggs.

Saturday is the more religious day, and then Sunday is the family day where everyone spends a lot of time together and they eat and make some other dishes as well, like chakupuli. And then Monday everyone goes to the cemeteries and hangs out and celebrates the lives of the ancestors.

Yes.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I mean, it's quite different from Western Easter, but also there's a few similarities.

Of course, there's some crossover with Christianity, so that totally makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely.

So any sort of other personal traditions that you and your family do? Things that maybe won't be the normal stuff?

Not really. We're not very religious family and we don't follow very, like, religious rules. But there are. We do just a typical things.

Basically, we don't do anything extra. The only thing is sometimes we bake things that can be bought in the shops, like the Easter cake. But other than that, we don't have any.

One thing that I can say is every region has and can have its own tradition at some point. However, a lot of things got lost and they got forgotten. But there is one very interesting tradition that still keeps going.

In Guria region, there is a lello purti competition which is similar to rugby, but a bit different. So they make the ball themselves from the leather and they stuff it with grass and sand. And it's the heaviest ball you can carry.

It could be around like two, two and a half kilos. It also has to be like anywhere from 80 to 90 centimeters longer in diameter.

So what they do is there are two villages who compete with each other and like, whoever manages to bring that ball to their opponent's side is the winner. And then they take the ball because it's very rustic and very like fighty scenes. So there are a lot of injuries happening.

It's a boisterous, aggressive game in the countryside.

Yes. They usually take that ball as a trophy and also as a respect to a person who died that year.

It could be Lelo Burti player or someone else in the village.

So that's a interesting tradition that I have not seen myself, unfortunately, because even though I'm from Guria, we don't typically go to Guria region in Easter and we stay in Tbilisi, but that's an option for the listeners to do maybe this year or next year.

All right, yeah. So does this happen in quite a lot of villages, then, or is this just a few in. Just in Gurij? It's just the one place in Guria.

Yeah. The village is called Shoukhouti. The main event happens there and it's on Easter Sunday every year.

And so the winner gets the ball and the honour. And what does the loser get shots of? Cha Cha.

I mean, at the end, probably they're all going to get together and drink and celebrate the Easter at some point, but that's the whole, like the sporty and folk aspect of the traditional.

Yeah. All right, great. Well, I think we're pretty close to out of time. Was there anything else specifically, any other traditions that we missed?

Not that I can think of. I think I covered everything.

All right, cool. Well, I will be trying to get myself involved in some of these Easter traditions this year.

We're hoping to run an Easter tour and go and have this dinner with some people out in the countryside with Winemaker.

So, yeah, if you're listening to this before Easter, or if you're listening to it next year or any other Easter after that, that then do take a look on our website, eatthisthistours.com and we're going to list special events on there. So you can find this Easter tour or just put me an email as well. Just use the form on the website.

So, yeah, anything else you wanted to mention about yourself? Where can people find you if you've got social media accounts or just come to your blog.

I have an Easter in Georgia blog post on my blog, red fedoradire.com for all the details with the dates and I update it every year with the specific dates. And if you want to read the same things that I basically talk today, you can also find me on social media.

I have Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that I don't really use because Twitter is not very famous in Georgia, but in all the social media you can find me as Red fedoradiary.

Awesome. Okay. And yeah, the links to that we will put in the show notes so people can find those links nice and easy as well. Great.

Well, Baya, thanks for coming in and chatting. Hopefully we'll get to chat about another topic sometime in the future as well. That would be awesome.

I'd be happy to. Thanks for having me. Once again, great.

And thanks everyone for listening.

As always, if you want to leave us a review or you've got any comments or feedback or anything else, and you want some other topics covered by us on the podcast, do pop those in an email to Meg, my wife, who's not on the show today, of course, but megzoodfuntravel.com, pop her an email and let her know what you want to hear about. All right, that's it. Thanks again.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Tbilisi Podcast.

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