Easter in Nădlac

Nădlac (Slovak: Nadlak) is a town in western Romania. An international border town, Nădlac is the main border crossing into western Romania from Hungary. It is also a centre of the Lutheran Slovak community in Romania. The town's name in Hungarian means "big place". The Romanian and Slovak names derive from that. Because it is the centre of the Lutheran Slovak community, lot of their Easter traditions and customs are preserved.

Easter Traditions The Easter holiday is named “Veľká noc”; it means "Great Night" in Slovak. Many symbols of Easter are related to the spring and beginning of a new life. Easter symbols include: the hand-painted or decorated egg “kraslice” is the most recognizable symbol of the Easter.

Easter eggs are decorated by girls to be given to boys on Easter Monday. There are many techniques to decorate Easter eggs. Different materials can be used, such as bee's wax, straw (hay), water colours, onion peels, picture stickers. Nowadays eggs are also coloured in only one colour such as: red, blue, yellow, green. The most used colours are blue and white.

The special traditional foods are associated with what one would enjoy having on Easter morning in a typical Slovak village. The simple meal includes an Easter egg, a slice of “sunka” (ham), “klobasa” (smoked sausage), “paska” (Easter bread), “syrek” (cheese), “chren” (horse radish), “maslo” (butter), “sol” (salt) and some “kolace” (nut and poppy seed rolls) for dessert.

In Slovakia,and also in Nădlac, a tradition of spanking or whipping is carried out on Easter Monday. In the morning, men spank women with a special handmade whip called “korbáč” (in Slovak) and throw cold water on them. The “korbáč” consists of eight, twelve or even twenty-four withies (willow rods), is usually from half a meter to two meters long and decorated with coloured ribbons at the end. The spanking normally is not painful or intended to cause suffering. A legend says that woman should be spanked in order to preserve their health and beauty throughout the next year.

Traditionally, the spanked woman gives a coloured egg and sometimes a small amount of money to the man as a sign of gratitude. Also, the day following Easter is called "Watering Monday". Water, perfume or perfumed water is often sprinkled in exchange for an Easter egg. It’s very odd for the women to be “washed” with cold water, but they brag the following day about the number of visits they had.

In the past, people used to dress up on the Easter day in traditional folk costumes.

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