Baltic Visitor

The biggest festival in the Baltic calendar, midsummer is celebrated with a night of partying on 23rd June. It is a true pagan throwback, with the sun symbolically defeating the darkness, although it also has a more practical side as it marks the start of the summer harvest.

Midsummer goes by a different name in each country: for the Estonians it is Jaanipäev, for the Latvians it is Līgo (and the 24th is Jāni), while the Lithuanians call it Joninės or Rasos. It is a fantastic time to be in any of the three countries, although arguably Latvia has the edge as the locals tend to start earlier in the day.

Celebrations vary slightly, but in each country fires are lit and people stay up all night. One tradition sees young couples wandering off into the forests, ostensibly looking for a mythical flowering fern. Another holds that the dew which forms overnight has healing properties.

This is a time for families and for feasting, with wreaths and crowns made from grasses, leaves and flowers. Tourists in the area can simply hope to become involved in proceedings, but that is hardly foolproof. Sadly, the official tourist office websites for the three Baltic countries seem to provide little or no information about midsummer (the Latvian site, for example, notes the date but directs visitors to another website which seems to have no current information in English).

So, one of my missions for the next couple of weeks is to track down ways for tourists to get involved at midsummer this year. Watch this space – and don’t forget that you can subscribe to the RSS feed (at the top of the page) or by email (in the sidebar on the right). If you have any tips for celebrating midsummer, please do leave a comment.

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