Tuja: John's Day

[June 23 - 24]

John's Day, called Jani, is the summer solstice. The Latvians, as with other Baltic and Scandinavian groups, have always celebrated with an all-night party. Here are some photos of the modern day action at a campsite outside of Tuja.


Aaron, Marita, Tom, Kristine, Raimonds, and Martins at the bonfire

It is a tradition to wear wreaths. Oak wreaths for the guys and a flower one for the girls. I made mine and we bought Dean's at a local market. The oak has a great strong smell. Most American-Latvians like to wear the wreaths, but few Latvians in Latvia actually wear them unless it is their name's day! This was a surprise to me, but I wore mine anyway.


Dean, Marita, and Aaron before Jani.

Once we arrived at the car camping spot, I taught the other girls how to make a flower wreath with the help of scissors and dental floss.



The campground was located on a long stretch of beach. The water was cold but the Latvians didn't seem to notice out there. Dean and I took a walk around before sunset.



My wreath had totally wilted from the long bus ride to the campground from Riga, but you can still see a bit of it here. I included some stalks of wheat.



Back on the beach, we had a game of rough soccer and some frisbee throwing. Spectators say that Aaron managed to knock over Celine while fighting for the soccer ball, and therefore, she promptly shoved his face into the sand. Aaron claims that it was entirely unprovoked. On a side note, Aaron managed to keep his beer from spilling during the entire incident.



Around midnight, a huge bonfire was set off. We had to stand feet away from the intense heat. Usually, it is tradition to jump over the bonfire for good luck, but we had to wait until it died down a bit.



At our campsite, we had a great big table with all the goodies. We ate sasliks, the Latvian version of sish kabobs, and John's Day cheese, a mild cheese with caraway seeds. Beer is the preferred drink of choice. Notice all the mosquitoes around my pants. They were fierce - mosquito attack!!



Night never seemed to fall, and the sky remained in a dusk-like state until the sun started to rise again around 4. We stayed awake until then spending some time at the bonfire and at the huge dance floor.



The next day we ate again and then lounged on the beach. Dean invented a new game, StoneBall, where we bounced rocks off of a volleyball and had penalties involving lots of running in the sand. It was quite brutal after a late night.

We caught the bus back into Riga and promptly fell asleep.