The last week before the great Easter fast is called White Week, and the last day of White Carnival, in many villages White Thursday was celebrated as a feast. In the past, this week in Serbian villages was marked by the passage of masked processions that sang, while the villagers would give them meat, bacon, cakes, but most often eggs. This custom has been preserved to this day in the villages around Topola, and the youngest have saved the tradition of their ancestors from oblivion.
-For this special day, mothers, grandmothers, sisters dress and make us up, mostly it’s bigger clothes, lots of colorful colors, so that people don’t recognize us. Our faces are covered, we don’t recognize each other when we meet in the alley. Mostly the point is to change our voice a little and no matter how much someone tries to recognize us, we disguise ourselves so well that it is not possible. People give us various sweets, juices, eggs, our baskets are full of gifts when we return home and that makes us very happy,” Nikola from Lipovac says for RINA.
Throughout the week, children visit houses in the village, perhaps their visit is most pronounced on weekends. Yesterday they were busy in the village of Masloševo, near Kragujevac, they even played a kolo before leaving.
-I filmed them as they were leaving, one child was playing, three of them played a kolo, my heart was full when I saw that sight. I am glad that our children preserve customs, nurture our tradition, rejoice in holidays, something like this is worth living for, said a resident of Masloševo.
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Older residents remember what White Week used to look like when they were also part of these customs, and retell:
The whole week we mask and visit the village, but Sunday is the most important. We used to go to neighboring villages, a few of us would gather, we would sing, laugh, joke. They give us what they have in the house, most often it was bacon, eggs, some sweets, fruit. We also got some dinars, mostly in metal, it’s worth it. At the end of the day, the collected gifts are shared, there was no end to happiness. It also happened that we tripped over dresses and some eggs were broken from the basket, but still our day was filled and our faces were beaming, emphasizes a resident.
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Source: RINA, Photo: RINA