Three Romanian customs on this page, and all three are on UNESCO's list. A red and white thread is given on the first of March, men in white dance the Căluș at Orthodox Whitsun to bring health to a house, and at Christmas the young men go door to door singing.
Photo: El bes, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Romania has eleven elements on UNESCO's lists, and three of them are the festivals on this page: the Căluș ritual, inscribed in 2008; the men's group colindat at Christmas, inscribed in 2013 and shared with the Republic of Moldova; and the practices of the first of March, inscribed in 2017 and shared with Bulgaria, Moldova and North Macedonia.
They are not festivals in the sense of a programme and a stage. Each is something people do to each other: a thread tied on a wrist, a band of dancers in a yard, a group of young men at a door in the dark. The rest of the Romanian list is of the same kind — the doina, the lad's dances, the blouse with the embroidered shoulder, the shepherds' transhumance — practices rather than events, and the festivals here are where they are performed in public.
Colindatul în ceată bărbătească
On Christmas Eve the young men of a Romanian village form a band and walk it door to door, singing songs whose words are fitted to the household in front of them. The girls of the house get a song of their own. In the same fortnight, in the north-east, the bear and the goat come down the street on their own legs.
December 24 – 25, 2026Calculated
On the first of March, Romanians give each other a small twist of red and white thread, pinned to the coat or tied at the wrist. It is worn until the first blossom, swallow or stork of the year is seen, and then hung on a tree. Four countries keep the custom, and UNESCO lists it as one.
March 1, 2027Calculated
Ritualul Călușului
A band of men in white shirts, bells at the ankle and a stick in the hand, dance in a village yard in southern Romania at Orthodox Whitsun. They have sworn an oath and follow a leader, they go from house to house, and for the days of Rusalii they are held to carry healing rather than to give a performance.
June 20 – 22, 2027Calculated