Spring in Transylvania: Wake Up and Splash (or Be Splashed)

By PALKO KARASZ (for New York Times) and photos by Andrei Pungovschi and NYT

SANCRAIENI, Romania — Young men in Sancraieni have risen early on Easter Monday for as long as anyone can remember. So have the women and girls — to be soaked in ice-cold water and sprayed with patchouli.

“Sprinkling” is a spring rite in the heart of Transylvania, in central Romania, when women are watered like flowers. The water, freshly drawn from a well, is believed to secure health, beauty and perhaps even love for the women who find themselves beneath a bucketful of it.

On Monday morning, about two dozen young men in traditional attire — high black boots, black hats, white shirts and cream-colored trousers resembling riding breeches — gathered at the home of Koppany Gal, 23, who works at a hospital. Beer and snacks were already on the table.

“It’s an important event for us,” said Mr. Gal, who has helped organize the sprinkling group in the village for nine years. Like the other men there that day, he attends a folk dance club that revives lost traditions in this part of the world.

The men set off under gray clouds, marching through streets of single-story houses with red clay rooftops. Some carried traditional instruments; all of them were singing. They could expect to eat and drink well that day: Girls and their mothers around the village typically spend the weekend preparing pastries, drinks and snacks, including eggs colored red. The men would be welcome to all of it, all day.

At the houses where they stopped, young women in red, black and white folkloric dress came out to listen. The men would recite a poem ending, “May I pour?”

After one woman consented with a cheerful if predictable “yes,” two men held her as a third threw cold water from a bucket rimmed with red carnations.

“It feels good that they thought of me,” said Hajnalka Cseke, 18, who also dances in the folk group. “It’s nice to see all of us gathered here.”

Ms. Cseke, drenched, joined her sister in picking up trays of seasonal pastries and wine and offering them to the visitors.

Of course some women in the region dislike the tradition, viewing it as dated and even sexist. Some merely endure it, like a vexing but obligatory visit from a relative.

There was no sign of that on Monday in Sancraieni, which stretches up from a two-lane country road that wends through a wide valley, reaching the edge of the pine forests that run up the surrounding mountains. The mostly Hungarian-speaking population here is part of a large minority of ethnic Hungarians living mostly in the Transylvania region. They call the village by a different name, Csikszentkiraly.

Many here see the rite of sprinkling as a way to keep tradition alive. The folk dance group that counts the water-carrying men as members has revived several traditions that have disappeared or changed in urban settings.

“Events like this provide the basis for a sense of identity,” said Szilveszter Kelemen, 31, who leads the group. “If a people don’t have a culture, it ends up crumbling away.”

In most places, traditional costumes and buckets of water have given way to contemporary Sunday best and bottles of perfume, or even spray deodorant.

“This costume is not very comfortable,” Mr. Kelemen said of his breeches and shirt. “The trousers are made of a rough material, and it stings.”

The tradition of dousing people with water is not limited to Transylvania. It crosses Central and Eastern Europe, differing between Romania and Poland, encompassing Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine.

In Poland, the day is called Wet Monday. Elsewhere in Europe, there are water bombs and pistols; firefighters have even been seen using fire hoses. Girls in some regions receive playful strokes with a young willow branch; the boys get water thrown at them the next day.

The poems asking for permission have become bolder, and it is now common to send them as text messages instead of actually visiting.

The rite dates to the 18th century, but its origins are uncertain, said Hannah Foster, a curator at the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest. Many sources trace it to baptism.

“The form remains, and the devices change,” she said in a phone interview. “The tradition is kept to varying degrees from village to village, depending on the degree of isolation and the ethnic groups.”

Easter has become secularized in most of Europe, with a steady decline in religion and churchgoing. It is a highly commercial holiday, synonymous with chocolate eggs and a long weekend. This Easter weekend, the bars and clubs in the town of Miercurea Ciuc near Sancraieni were as full as, if not fuller than, the churches.

But in spite of modernization, urbanization and the persecution of religions under former Communist governments, sprinkling has survived.

Children also participate in the ritual.

Anna Kassay, 14, received a visit from classmates at the door of her apartment building. Even after being doused by six bottles of seltzer simultaneously, she thanked her visitors. “It makes me feel like I matter,” she said.

Maria Gal, a municipal worker, was chaperoning TV crews from both Romania and Hungary who were curious to see the way her village kept its customs.

She said traditions like sprinkling and the folk dance group helped young people preserve their identity and gave them a sense of community.

The village, whose main business is, fittingly, water, has little else to offer. Many residents work in the factory that bottles mineral water from local springs. Others commute to Miercurea Ciuc for work, or move to Western Europe for better salaries, mostly in seasonal agriculture.

Free movement within the European Union has given the promise of a better life to hundreds of thousands but left many local professions struggling and villages losing their youths.

“It is important to keep them from emigrating,” Ms. Gal said. “Or inspire them to come back, even if they do go to work abroad.”