Märzchen Mit dem die Bevölkerung in Rumänien begrüßt den Month of March as the beginning of spring. For many centuries, is celebrated on 1 March, a celebration of victory of good over evil. The cold season is over, the forces of nature to rise. It is believed that the origins of the festival come from Rome, when the New Year was celebrated on the first of March, on the birthday of the God of Martius, god of agriculture and a symbol of the rebirth of nature. The
Martisor is typically given away for March 1 and it consists of a red and white cord, usually with a small trailer, and is often attached to a blouse or other garment. The men put their wives little surprises with flowers or lucky symbols in the form of a trailer (four-leaf clover, horseshoe, chimney, birds, animals), fitted with a red and white string.
It symbolizes the spring and is given away by relatives or close friends, often with a snowdrop, to women and children. This custom dates from pre-Christian times by the natives of Romania. The colors red and white symbolize the snow and the sun, the transition from winter to spring, the contradictions of life. Man with the Martisor until you see a flowering tree, then throws it into the tree and wants etwas.Eine similar Tradition, "Martenitsa", it is the first of March in Bulgaria.
The old Dochia
The name seems to originate from the Byzantine calendar. On the first of March, the feast day of St. Evdokia is celebrated. In the Romanian legends says that long ago the son was an evil old woman named Dochia, who married against the wishes of his mother. In order to torment her daughter decided Dochia, these undergo the first of March a series of tests: You should go to the river and wash black wool as long to do this would be, and looking at the still cold season ripe berries. God took pity on the daughter and helped her to do both tasks. As Dochia saw the berries, she thought the spring had come, and broke with their goats to pasture on the mountains. As a precaution, they had put on nine sheep fur. But God sent rain, and the old man took off a jacket after another. As the rain turned into snow, and the frost left them and their goats to ice freeze and eventually turned them to stone. These fossilized forms, hikers can still in the Bucegi Mountains states in the Carpathian Mountains begegnen.Die Romanian tradition that the first nine days of March therefore alternate Weather predominates, because each takes off Dochia a sheepskin coat and shake off the rain or snow. Today selects all Romanians one of the first nine days of March as "old man", and it is said that his happiness depends on the remainder of the calendar year by the weather of the day: If the selected day well, it means the same for the entire year, the day is cloudy, is also the year not as good. 
On 1 March is the Romanian Cultural Institute (Argentinierstr. 39, 1040 Vienna) and your Martisor day for you. We are pleased to offer the little signs of spring to pay. But do not come too late. Martisor there's only so long as supplies last. 
