We know that people from the Balkans are very special and famous about their way of life and especially their way of having nice time and make a good party. We want to share with you 6 important “rituals” and celebrations that people from Balkans are proud of. If you will traveling soon to these countries please find a way to make some local friends and try to be a part of at least one of these traditional celebrations. It doesn’t matter which one, we are sure that it will be definitely a unique experience.
- Let’s have a cup of coffee
When someone will invite you to have a cup of coffee in the Balkans be ready to sit down and stay there for a while and very often with only one coffee. Drinking coffee here means: let’s sit down and talk about everything and everyone, about your life, about your problems, about your life goals, about the universe … very often everything starts with a coffee, and then you continue to have a lunch or dinner or some drinks.
- Let’s go to Kafana
Having a lunch or dinner in the Balkans means going out in some Kafana (Kafana is the traditional restaurant that you can find everywhere in the Balkans) The difference between some fancy restaurant and Kafana is that here the atmosphere is more familiar, and almost always you can listen to traditional Balkan music, and eat some of the best traditional dishes and of course drink the best rakija, wine or beer. If you are travelling around Balkans you will notice that those Kafana are always crowded, especially on weekends. Almost every “let’s go out” begins with Kafana, and then some bar or club.
- Slava time
Slava is a traditional religious celebration, usually most of the families here choose one patron saint and every year they celebrate the saint’s feast day. There is lot of traditional food, rakija and wine. Full house with relatives and friends. Find a way to get invited and you will have definitely a very unique experience. Most of these celebrations are in autumn or winter.
- Name-day
Do we miss reasons to celebrate? Never happened in the Balkans. Lot of name-days here are the same day with Slava. Let me explain you: if there is someone in the family whose name is Nikola and they have the Slava of St. Nikola, they will have double celebration on December 19. The celebration of the name-day is the same like for Slava, lot of food, family and friends, eating and drinking until late.
- Wedding celebration
Again we have a big reason to celebrate. I hope you already understood that in the Balkans almost everything is a reason to make a party and have a nice time with friends or family. The same thing happens with the wedding celebration. Here the weddings are very big, and if you are lucky to be guest on some traditional wedding it is guaranteed that you will have lot of fun. There will be lot of traditional music and traditional dances and of course lot of beer, wine and rakija, the Balkan way of connecting people 🙂
- New Year’s Eve
Let’s finish the year like a real party people 🙂 The New Year’s Eve here is something very special and the party starts maybe few days before. The most crazy day is always 31st of December. There is a day party and a night party, you will see lot of people that are going on both, just with one or two hours break to get rest and change the clothes. So you really need to have a lot of energy to do this. The bars on this day are crowded, there is everywhere music, even on the streets. Mix of commercial, techno, turbo folk music and everyone is happy. The same spirit in the Kafanas, you will see people dancing on the tables and having lot of fun.