Easter is one of the most cherished holidays for the Black Sea city of Varna and its young people. The past 17 years have turned this holiday in a wonderful opportunity for friends to see each other after long days of being apart. This attitude of camaraderie towards one of Christianity’s most sacred moments has curious roots in Bulgaria.

For almost 45 years, Bulgarian communists followed literally Lenin’s words that religion is the opiate of the masses. Since drugs had no place in Bulgaria’s communist society, all activities related to religion were not banned per se, but condemned by the communist moral and official party line.

As a result, the keeping of the Christian tradition was left to the truly devoted and to those who considered Christianity as a way to oppose the ruthlessness of communism.

My family was neither of these. Born in the last decade of communism in the early 1980s, I remember no such thing as going and circling the church three times on midnight or lighting candles, the flame started from the priest and passed along to all present. What my memories recall is the painting of the eggs and the fun of cracking them. The religious angle was simply not there.

Since painting eggs was not something written and proclaimed in the Bible but a Bulgarian tradition that had existed for centuries, the official communist line did not mind people doing it. It minded the process of going to church after that.

Children were even asked to bring painted eggs to school and test out their strength, which turned the ritual into something usual, something that had no connection to the Divine it represented in the first place. In some textbooks from the 1950s (the times of orthodox communism), the red colour of the Easter egg was explained with the blood spilt by Bulgarian soldiers rather than with the blood spilt by Christ.

In 1989, democracy was established in Bulgaria and the new rulers of the country were anxious to revive religion so that people could see the difference between them and the communists. Easter, together with Christmas, became the most cherished religious holiday in Bulgaria, as it is in the rest of the Christian world.

With the background (cited above) that I had, for me and for most of my friends at school, Easter in the beginning of the 1990s was just three more days without school lessons. Our calendar as students was marked in two places: Christmas and Easter, because that was when schools were given a week of vacation. Family trips were arranged according to the calendar and everyone waited for Easter to come.

In the meantime, the anti-communist policy of the new democratic governments (although the renamed communists had their share in government as well) was trying to bring back the “old” traditions that the 45 years of communism had tried to erase. Television programmes on Easter themes were released on the only one television channel in the country. People were taught how to paint eggs and what it meant. Shops started selling recipes for Easter dinners. At schools, teachers, who, five years before, were teaching about the bright future of socialism, were now preaching about the sacrifice of Christ. Step by step, the theme of Easter sprang up everywhere.

A week before the “event”, news presenters were broadcast in the presence of a basket full of Easter eggs. The TV even started showing the Catholic mass of the Pope, live from Rome, although the Western and Orthodox Easters do not often coincide.

On Easter day, live reports from Bulgaria’s largest cathedral, St Alexander Nevski in Sofia, showed Patriarch Maxim’s service in the presence of the president and prime minister. Suddenly, appearing at church on Easter had turned into a public event. A place at which you have to be seen.

Easter fasting became fashionable as well. Balancing your diet with Easter fasting became popular among young girls and women. Unfortunately, most of them did not go to visit the priest after the fasting period, as the Orthodox religion requires.

The once-schoolchildren had become university students and the holidays at Easter provided good opportunities for those studying outside Varna to come and visit their hometown. For those studying abroad, Easter holidays were more than welcomed as well. As such, Easter became more like a gathering of friends than a family holiday.

Now, the Easter “propaganda” has done its job well and 30 minutes before midnight, hundreds of young people gather in front of the city’s churches dressed in their newest clothes and fashionable accessories. Short skirts, stockings, heavy make-up, the latest hairstyles, leather jackets and sunglasses mix with the more traditional outfits and prayers of the older generations.

At some places, the crowds are so big that police have to close the areas and patrols are sent. Everybody has a candle in his hand and after the sign from the priest, the big circling of the church starts. Three times around, religion says, and the people follow it without even knowing what it symbolises. The biggest problem for the girls is to keep their hair out of the flame from the candles of those who walk behind them. Despite that, the smell of burnt hair is something usual on Easter night.

When the church has been circled three times, religion says that people should go home in peace and quite. For Varna’s youngsters, however, this is not the case.

After midnight, when the duty is done and everybody has seen you at church, you need to get rid of the burnt-out candles and their smell. For some reason, the customary thing has become to paste your candles on the church’s walls. This results is massive piles of burnt-out candles and plastic cups (brought by some genius to protect the hand when walking with the burning candle). Then the night turns into a disco night. After all, this is for what people have waited all night.

Easter has proven very profitable for club owners. Special offers tempt the young ones to the numerous discos around the city.

Easter celebrations rule the town. In the morning it looks as if nothing special has happened the night before. Only the candles piling up along the streets remind that the night has not passed quietly.

Easter is over and people go back to their daily duties. Until Christmas, at least, when Varna’s boys and girls will practice for their next Easter celebrations.