For the seventeenth time, residents and guests of Veliko Tarnovo can celebrate Enyovden a.k.a. Midsummer’s Day. The Day of the summer solstice, medicinal herbs and ancient magical rituals will be celebrated with the holiday “Enyovden at the Samovodska Charshia”.
Enyovden is a festival related to the summer solstice. It takes place on 24th June and coincides with St. John Baptist’s Day. On Midsummer Day the sun is believed to end its journey towards summer and, after rotating three times, it turns towards winter. In ancient times there was the popular belief that herbs gathered before sunrise on Enyovden have stronger healing powers than those gathered on any other day of the year, so medicine women went to the meadows and in the woods early in the morning to pick herbs. According to the tradition, on Enyovden children and adults ’bathe’ in the dew in order to be strong and healthy. Young women twine a wreath of flowers and herbs and everybody passes through it three times as a ritual for health and fertility.
The festivities in Veliko Tarnovo will begin on June 24 at 10.30 am with the traditional wreath made of 77 herbs through which people will have to pass. This year, due to the crisis with COVID-19, those who came to the holiday will not be able to pluck herbs from the wreath themselves. For those who want to follow the tradition and take home a stalk of the Midsummer’s Day wreath, there will be pre-prepared small bouquets of medicinal herbs, which will be distributed on the spot.
There will, of course, be a horoteka as well. During the celebration, all anti-epidemic measures will be observed. Social distance and one-way traffic on the Samovodska Charshia will be organized. The celebration of Midsummer’s Day on the Samovodska Charshia is organized by the Municipal Tourist Agency “Tsarevgrad Tarnov”.
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