Rainfall dampens Summer Day celebrations

TIRANA, March 14 – Heavy rainfall on Thursday ruined celebrations of Summer Day, a pagan festival originally celebrated in the city of Elbasan, central Albania, to mark the end of winter. March 14, a national public holiday since several years now, resembled more to a winter day, with ongoing rainfall cancelling many of the scheduled open-air events both in Tirana and Elbasan which were supposed to pack the streets with visitors from all over Albania and the neighbouring Kosovo and Macedonia. Such heavy rain during on March 14, is not remembered since a dozen years, said fans.
However, hundreds of people both in Elbasan and Tirana defied heavy rainfall and thunders to celebrate Summer Day. The municipality of Tirana had scheduled a tight programme of open-air events and decorated the city with flowers but the festivities lacked the dozens of thousands of people packing the streets.
Dozens of cultural events, including trade fairs, concerts and parades are held both in Tirana and Elbasan and other towns to mark Summer Day, an official holiday since nine years now. The traditional cake symbolizing this festival is called Ballokume.
While thousands of people rush to Elbasan, where the holiday originates, celebrations in Tirana are becoming ever bigger since Summer Day was announced a national holiday.
Ratified by the Albanian Parliament in 2004 as an official and national holiday, this day of pagan celebration symbolizes the rebirth of nature, the awakening from a long dark winter and a general rejuvenation of one’s spirit. The celebration of Summer Day dates back to ancient times in the City of Elbasan, which due in part to its location in the geographic center of the country, was considered the umbilical city for all of Albania. According to Albanian legend the Mountain Muse, who was the goddess of hunting, forests, and all things related to nature, would usher in summer by coming out of her temple on the 14th of March.