Our work table showing the blown eggs, wax and hot plate, crochet hook and thread and a finished basket of eggs.
As well as decorating eggs, a great tradition is to decorate honey cakes with patterns and pictures using icing sugar. Not every family may do this as it is fairly tricky, so they are on sale for those who don’t, but we had a try at this to.
The honey cakes are cut out using metal cutters, baked and then glazed. Icing is carefully squeezed into designs and decorated with tiny silver balls.
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- These preparations are more like hobbies or crafts which many people enjoy doing, but the real emphasis is on the careful preparation of the baskets of food carried to the church on Easter Sunday morning for blessing by the priest. Each basket contains common foods like bread, cheese, ham and sausages and decorated eggs. Nobody eats before the morning service and the baskets are blessed by the priest after the service ensuring that there will be plenty of food for everyone in the year a head.
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- Baskets containing the traditional meals are set out on the ground around the church whilst the priest walks along blessing every basket. Although a serious ceremony, the priest has fun commenting on the contents of the baskets, making the waiting crowds laugh. After blessing the baskets are covered again in the pristine white embroidered cloths which covered them before the ceremony.
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- Following the blessing of the baskets, everyone dashes back home to eat not surprisingly as everyone has fasted from eating meat during Lent and the delicious smell of fresh food from the baskets is in the air! There is also a superstition that the last one home will be late and disorganised for the rest of the year!
- I would see myself being able to use my experience of Easter in Slovakia to give pupils a different view of how Christians celebrate Easter from the way we do in our local community in Scotland. My own increased knowledge will give me a more confident approach to discussing the subject and relating the topic in a meaningful way to the lives of my pupils This is just what the Scottish Executive’s Curriculum For Excellence advocates in its approach to the teaching of Christianity and Other World Religions. We aim to help the pupils develop an understanding of Christianity and Other World Religions. In order to do this we look at:
Beliefs
Values and Issues
Practices and Traditions.
For younger children, like those I teach, we try, where we can to relate the new information to be learned to what the children already know. We also make the learning fun through an active approach where games, investigations and activities help achieve the learning objectives. I feel that there is lots of scope for this through art and craft and cooking activities. These would help make the learning about how Slovakians prepare for Easter meaningful and exciting.
Often our Easter assembly at the end of term is a celebration of the pupils’ achievements over the previous months. I feel that my experience in Slovakia has given me ideas which we could share within the school by presenting an interpretation of a Slovakian Easter albeit in a simplistic way.
A great introduction could be to learn about the traditional custom we saw on our first day in Stropkov, the little town we were staying in. Miro’s wife Anna, who teaches folk dancing and song, had been working with a class from the local primary school. They had put together a ceremony welcoming Spring which included The Burning of Morena. This is a traditional folk festival from Slovakia and the Czech Republic which symbolically says goodbye to Winter and welcomes Spring.
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Morena is in the centre of the dance surrounded by children chanting and singing songs. Anna is prompting from the side. The stripped Morena is held high.
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She is set alight and tossed over the bridge.
It is just the kind of story that captures children’s imagination and is quite dramatic in that Morena is stripped of her drab winter clothes, set on fire and tossed into the river! Spring then takes her place in the form of fresh green branches.
Morena dies in the river. Spring is represented by the green branches and is paraded back through the town.
It reminded me of the Nursery song we sing with little ones telling and acting out the story of Sleeping Beauty. I could envisage Burning Morena working in much the same way as a little play telling the same story with songs and poems about the end of Winter and the coming of Spring. This could be presented to the wider audience of the school and the parents.
Our school has “adopted” a school in Namibia and it is amazing how interested the pupils are in what life is like for the children there. I feel sure that they would enthusiastically find out about children in Slovakian schools. The opportunity for children to build up relationships and understanding of each others’ culture is encouraged in Curriculum For Excellence. I think pupils from Slovakia and Scotland would have so much to learn from each other. I certainly have and, back to food, my visit has whetted my appetite for more!
Report by Pat Gardner
SLOVAKIA ICHI 2009 7th - 15th April 2009. Report by Christine White
In the early hours of Wednesday morning I'm in the car heading to Edinburgh Airport, having checked my rucksack several times to make sure I had all I needed for my journey to Slovakia. Libby, Pat and Carol and myself (Christine) met in the departure lounge and boarded the plane to Manchester, where we then met up with David. Our journey was about to begin.
Firstly I would like to thank Miroslav Knezo (Miro) who is the director of Krajina a small organisation which works in Eco-tourism, community development and cultural management. Miro is larger than life character who's enthusiasm, knowledge and sense of humour made our trip to the east of Slovakia an unforgettable experience. He kindly drove us around his beautiful country to various towns, villages, monuments, churches, museums etc. but his work didn't stop there as he interpreted, informed us of the local traditions, customs and introduced us to interesting food and very kind local people.
Secondly for the opportunity to participate in this interesting and stimulating programme I am grateful to The Leonardo da Vinci Trust and Arch Network for making the ICHI 3 exchange possible. I am looking forward in applying our experiences in my day to day life. We have decided to write a joint report compiled by the four participants in this exchange.
I am Christine White and have been employed for the last twelve years as a Field Teacher by the RSPB at my local reserve, Vane Farm Loch Leven, near Kinross. My role at work is to deliver an outdoor and outreach teaching programme for children aged between three and sixteen years of age. When I'd been allocated a place on the Slovakian exchange I did a little research on the computer and for my bedtime reading I bought the only book on Slovakia that the book shop sold.
At Vane farm we have an Easter event called Step into Spring, we can have up to one hundred children taking part in this event. This is where I could do a workshop in Slovakian egg decorating which I'm sure will go well with a little adaptation. One problem we would have is finding white eggs, blowing the egg (this would be so time consuming) and what to do with the egg yolks? So the possibility of decorating pre boiled brown eggs with coloured wax could work, also Miro's egg demonstration would also be successful. We could also decorate a chocolate digestive biscuit, a fine substitute for Honey Breads. So watch this space !
My experience in the ICHI programme has improved my understanding of other cultures and traditions but this has raised other questions for me, what about the Scottish traditions, is enough being done here to keep them alive ? I have many unforgettable experiences that I've not written about in my part of the report, but the memories that will stay with me is the kindness of the Slovakian people and that not speaking the same language wasn't and shouldn't be a barrier. At Vane farm we have many volunteer's of various ages and nationalities so I will now be more understanding to foreign travels who's English is not good, I will remember that it's the participation and interaction with people that is important, a good lesson learned first hand from my time in Slovakia. I particularly enjoyed my time in Margita Safrankova's home, learning to cook Slovak dishes, and the stove she had in the kitchen l would be a delighted to have in my home. Since my return I have made potato bread, beef goulash and beetroot soup and have a few more recipes yet to cook for my family. The beetroot, sugar beet and horseradish dish I particularly enjoyed even although it brought tears to my eyes, this I think would be great side dish at my summer barbecues, but unfortunately I'll never be able to master the baking of Slovak cakes.
While travelling to Slovakia it gave us all a chance to get acquainted with one another. The journey was trouble free but we were tried when we arrived at Kocise airport. We were introduced to Miro. He drove us into who drove us into the historic city centre which is rich in history and architecture with the modern designs of the singing fountains blending in. We were glad to be able to walk around this breath taking city and Miro treated us to an ice cream in a cafe reminiscent of the older Italian style cafes of our youth in the UK.
For the duration our accommodation was a small friendly hotel called Forget Me Not. In the clean and quiet village of Stropkov where we could walk to the churches, shops and restaurants.
Thursday morning we woke up to a bright sunny day and walked to the local primary school to observe the older school children performing "The Spring Welcoming Ceremony". We joined the children, teachers and other observers to enjoy the well rehearsed ceremony. Miro's wife Anna is a teacher the school. The participating children circled the Morena ( a straw mannequin dressed in traditional clothing), recited poetry and sang delightfully. We then followed the procession to the nearby river where more poetry was delivered confidently, then with to the great delight of the children the Morena was set on fire then thrown into the river. This symbolised the end of Winter, and the arrival of spring and as the morning awakening had shown us, spring was indeed here.
Spring like our party had now arrived and opened the door to our many trips, adventures and hands on skills sessions, most of them I can say we enjoyed but one or two did bring a tear to our eyes.
Saturday morning saw the first of these hands on experiences begin . Dana a young lady who has continued the traditional skills of crochet and pilsanki (egg decorating)and is just beginning to learn English. Dana showed us the small white crochet baskets that she makes, then tries to teach us the art of crochet. Pat kindly volunteered and managed very well, the hook used is the thickness of a darning needle and the thread is rather thin. My attempt didn't reach Pat's high standards and neither of us would have been serious competition to Dana !
Dana began to show us the art of egg decorating and once again it was made to look so easy. There were fresh blown eggs, melting wax and tubs with coloured paint. The eggs were decorated by applying a small amount of melted wax using a small pin headed tool to a warm egg. The wax applied to the egg was only 1-2mm so it was a craft that took patience and skill, then the egg was steeped in a tub of dye (the choices were red, purple, yellow, blue and pink), the process was completed many times over to produce the highly decorative end product. When the process of waxing decorating was over, the wax was wiped off with a warm cloth. Dana kindly gave us all a white blown eggs and we were free to decorate our very own egg. Gentleness and a steady hand were most important and we all began our creative designs, time quickly passed and we had our very own decorated Slovakian Easter eggs to take back home.
Veronica and Lenya (girls in their early teens) arrived with a big box with various shaped honey cakes (bunny,house, basket) and pre mixed coloured icing made with egg white that is in a polythene bag with colours of red, yellow, blue, green and white. Lenya spoke very good English and introduced us to the tradition of honey cake decorating while Veronica demonstrated. Once again a steady hand was required so we select our biscuit and which colour we wanted to use first. To squeeze the mixture out of the polythene bag that has a pin prick of a hole is quiet an art, but by the end of the course we had a few decorated biscuits that were passable enough to take home.
Miro was next to demonstrate egg decorating. He collected flowers, leaves and grasses for his demonstration where he selected a few leaves and placed them on to the egg, then tightly secured a gauze bandage abound the egg. The eggs were boiled in it a pan with the outer skin of a onion and bacon rind, when the eggs had boiled for four minutes they were taken out of the water, cooled and then the gauze bandage and leaves were removed. The white eggs had gone a lovely dark golden brown colour with the markings of the leaves light brown on the shell. The bacon rind was than rubbed over the eggs to give a shined finish.
The trip to the Mayors house to be taught traditional cooking was great fun, and as neither the Mayor nor his wife could speak English and we couldn't speak Slovak, we all rallied round and managed to prepare Easter cheese and bread (pascha), dumplings filled with plum jam, home-made pasta for the chicken soup, chicken stuffed with two cheeses and ham, horseradish mayo, beetroot and a sugar beet and horseradish dish - the tearful mix !
Carol, Pat and David had the job of cleaning and preparing the horseradish for the graters - Miro, Pat and I. I think there was more water running down our three cheeks than the thunderstorm outside was producing, an experience that I don't think we will bring back to Vane Farm !!!
With the eggs and honey cakes decorated, cheese, bread and other foods were prepared the baskets could be filled and presented for the Easter service the at the church at five am. the following morning.
Report by Christine White
SLOVAKIAN EXCHANGE Report by Carol Dickson As part of Scotland’s Rural Past Project I was particularly interested in the rural communities there way of life custom and heritage I was also looking to make comparisons with the type of building and layout of rural farmsteads and villages, We were based in the town of Stropkov where we participated in some Easter traditions On our the visit to a village in the hills where they still hold a lot of their traditional customs I noticed there were still the remains of the previous wooden houses that were between 80- 100 years old but had been left as they stood and new houses build behind or next too Some being used for storage, but one was being renovated to its original condition so an old woman who had grown up in the house could move back in . The houses were built fairly close together with the gable end facing the street. And looks like the church would have been at the end of the town As we passed through other villages , they all seemed to be in a similar format where older houses gable end faced the road but in the newer housed nearly all had the doors facing the street – this is very similar to the lay out of a some Scottish villages were the weather dictated that it was better to have gable facing the wind this was most effective way to keep house wind and water tight . I did not have time to find out what the reason were for this method of building in Slovakia one of the many questions I now need to answer.
We then visited an open air museum of Ukrainian and Ruthenium Culture in Svidnik.
The museum consists reconstructed buildings from all over the country that were typical for an area or time period where the farmhouses are built of wood with thatched or stave roofs. The better off would have fences of stone instead of wood. Houses were typically build with animals and people under the same roof but were segregated by a hall and wall unlike our own longhouses were people and animals were living together with no great separation. The importance of the church was very evident in the houses as the icons were on the wall facing the door so you could acknowledge them as you entered the main living area, there were also good luck symbols carved into the main beams in the houses. The cooking area consisted of quite a good sized oven and stove in the corner of the room the most primitive one did not have a chimney but an area above the door and an open window to give a through draught to clear the smoke. later additions were a chimney flue from main room to the hall where the main chimney went to the roof so this style of house would have been fairly smoke free – unlike our house were we tended to have the fire in the middle of the room or middle of end wall. I was interested to hear that from a new adaptation of putting in hot plates into the ovens that this in turn changed the shape of pot that were used from pots with 3 legs to flat bottomed pots. This in turn changed the way and what was cooked and introduced new cooking methods using more animal fat. This then changed the type of live stock that was needed so less sheep and more cows were now being farmed. This is something I had not considered when doing my own project. I did not see any evidence of anything like a black house or any earlier homes – this is something else I will need to look into but from what I did see the standard of living of Slovakia people was much better that of Scotland’s rural communities . Noting that some of the houses had proper outside toilets. What I did notice was that people were building new houses next to there old house either ignoring it all together or the new buildings were tagged on to what was left of the old building. In some cases a new house was being built next to the old house, some of which looked like they just needed to be renovated what seems to be happening is that people do not want old things as people now want all new things they don’t want to be seen as old fashioned or a backward . I get the feeling it is the same thing the we went through in the sixties when no one wanted old things it was a new era a new future - what I have learned from this is to take a fresh look at the farmsteads and may be look for different meanings for some of the features.
As Slovakia have a very good way markings – and these could be adapted to fit into an walk around the disused farmsteads also we could adapt the ideas from the open air museum where crafts people work form a reconstructed house to a display in the rangers lodge with boards showing what would have been done on farm and crafts being demonstrated in workshops . These could also follow themes such as Easter or Christmas and would include what special foods were eaten clothes that were worn and house decorating . Also I think that from the standard board display we use for conferences could also add some traditional craft objects or have a simple demonstration.
Report by Carol Dickson
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"We were introduced to a wide range of interpretation of built and cultural heritage including archaeological excavations where the climatic challenges are greater in East Iceland than Scotland. The examples of interpretation illustrated the advantages and difficulties encountered in different approaches and will be invaluable for me when working with communities to interpret their heritage."
