page_title: Easter traditions
section_title: Central and Eastern Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Easter traditions / Continental Europe / Central and Eastern Europe
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: velikonočni zajtrk
context_page_description: Since its origins, Easter has been a time of celebration and feasting and many traditional Easter games and customs developed, such as egg rolling, egg tapping, pace egging, cascarones or confetti eggs, and egg decorating. Today Easter is commercially important, seeing wide sales of greeting cards and confectionery such as chocolate Easter eggs as well as other Easter foods. Even many non-Christians celebrate these features of the holiday while ignoring the religious aspects.
context_section_description: Many central and eastern European ethnic groups, including the Albanians, Armenians, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Croats, Czechs, Estonians, Georgians, Germans, Hungarians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Macedonians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes, and Ukrainians, decorate eggs for Easter.
  In Bulgaria, the Easter eggs are decorated on Thursday or Saturday before Easter. Widespread tradition is to fight with eggs by pair, and the one who's egg is the last surviving is called borak (Bulgarian: борак, fighter). The tradition is to display the decorated eggs on the Easter table together with the Easter dinner consisting of roasted lamb, a salad called Easter salad  (lettuce with cucumbers),  and a sweet bread called kozunak.
  In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and some parts of Hungary, a tradition of spanking or whipping is carried out on Easter Monday. In the morning, men spank women with a special handmade whip called a pomlázka (in Czech) or korbáč  (in Slovak); in eastern regions of former Czechoslovakia Moravia and Slovakia they also pour cold water on them. The pomlázka/korbáč consists of eight, 12 or even 24 withies (willow rods), is usually from half a metre to two meters long and decorated with coloured ribbons at the end. The spanking may be painful, but it's not intended to cause suffering. A legend says that women should be spanked with a whip in order to keep their health, beauty, and fertility during the whole next year.
  An additional purpose can be for men to exhibit their attraction to women; unvisited women can even feel offended. Traditionally, the spanked woman gives a coloured egg (kraslice) they've prepared by themselves as invitations to eat and drink and as a sign of her thanks to the man. If the visitor is a small boy, he is usually provided with sweets and a small amount of money.
  In some regions, the women can get revenge in the afternoon or the following day when they can pour a bucket of cold water on any man. The habit slightly varies across Slovakia and the Czech Republic. A similar tradition existed in Poland (where it is called Dyngus Day), but it is now little more than an all-day water fight.
  In Germany, decorated eggs are hung on branches of bushes and trees to make them Easter egg trees. Eggs are also used to dress wells for Easter, the Osterbrunnen, most prominently in the Fränkische Schweiz (Franconian Switzerland).
  In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia, a basket of food is prepared, covered with a handmade cloth, and brought to the church to be blessed.  A typical Easter basket includes bread, colored eggs, ham, horseradish, and a type of nut cake called "potica".
caption: Traditional Slovenian Easter breakfast with eggs, ham with horseradish, and potica
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