The happiest Christian holiday, Christmas, is approaching, and Orthodox customs dictate that the day before, on Christmas Eve, Badnjaci (a type of Yule log) should be brought into the house and lit in the evening. And to do all that, we must first cut them…
In America, it’s a bit more complicated than in Serbia and the Balkans, where you can usually go to the nearest forest armed with a small axe and get the job done.
Over here, across the ocean, there are special permits and zones where forest cutting is allowed, and sometimes you simply need permission from a landowner to do it on their property… but to get to such a place, you sometimes have to travel for several hours.
So, the Serbian Times team set off on a journey with a priest and parishioners of the St. Nicholas Church from Chicago, a journey that lasted more than three hours, from Chicago, all the way to another state, Wisconsin, in order to respect tradition and cut firewood.
Neither the extremely low temperature of -16 degrees Celsius nor the wind that pierced to the bone prevented our compatriots from doing what they had traveled so far for, to cut firewood in an oak forest, as it should be.
And instead of antifreeze, according to tradition, homemade rakija (fruit brandy) served as a warm-up.
And when the job was done and enough firewood was cut for the entire parish, it had to be marked somehow, so they started dancing a kolo, and then they fired all their guns…
Anyway, take a look at how it looked in the exclusive report that our editor Antonije Kovačević filmed on the spot, in Wisconsin…
AUTHOR: Antonije Kovačević VIDEO/EDIT: Vladimir Talijan
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