Baltic Visitor

I hope that any of my readers living in (or visiting) the Baltics enjoyed last night, and want to wish them a happy Jāņi (Latvia), Jaanipäev (Estonia) or Joninės (Lithuania). If anyone managed to find one of those mythical flowering ferns, please let me know!
I came across a traditional Latvian Jāņi song yesterday in the […]

[Read more →]

[ 22 June, 2007; 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. ] The 22nd June sees an array of events in Riga’s Dome Square. The Green Market (Zāļu tirgus) runs from 9am-5pm, selling traditional Jāņi foods. You can also buy oak leaves and flowers for garlands, which can be threaded while you wait, if you want to go for the traditional Midsummer look. There are musical events […]

[Read more →]

With only a few days to go before Midsummer, there is an excellent article on the annual festivities on Latvians Online – one of the best English-language Latvian websites. The piece by writer and musician Amanda Jātniece describes the run-up to Jāņi (Midsummer) in a manner recalling the days before Christmas:
Jāņi is on the air […]

[Read more →]

[ 23 June, 2007 to 24 June, 2007. ] 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 […]

[Read more →]