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Ziemassvetki - Winter Party
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When:
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26 Dec 2008 (annual)
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Where:
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Ethnographic Open Air Museum
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Celebrate the winter solstice - traditionally the shortest day of the year - at the huge Ethnographic Open Air Museum just east of Riga. The Ziemassvetki - Winter Party harks back to Latvian mythology.
Celebrating the birth of Dievs, the highest god of Latvian mythology, Riga's Ziemassvetki - Winter Party - held on 24, 25 or 26 December - marks the culmination of Velu laiks (the "season of ghosts"), when candles are lit for minor gods (called Dievin) and a fire is kept burning until the end of festivities, to burn away the unhappiness of the previous year.
Traditionally the Ziemassvetki - Winter Party itself is built round a feast, at which a place was left empty for the arrival of ghosts, said to arrive on a sleigh. Any similarity to the Christian Christmas is entirely on purpose, complete with carol singers (budeli), as it was adopted en masse by Christianity in the middle ages.
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