An exhibition dedicated to Martsishor was mounted at the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History in Chisinau. This can be visited until March 30, IPN reports. According to the museum’s director Petru Vicol, the exhibited martsishors (amulets worn at chest to celebrate the coming of spring) are only a small part of the over 3,000 martsishors from the collection made in workshops at the museum during the past 15 years.
Some of the martsishors are very old and were transmitted from generation to generation and donated to the museum. The exhibition also includes pictures and information about the history of Martsishor.
Ethnographer Varvara Buzila, scientific secretary of the museum, said the martsishor has an enormous power. Many things disappeared, but the martsishor remained. “I don’t know if something similar exists in other parts of the world. As far as I know, only we have such a cultural practice – the Romanians everywhere, the Ukrainians, Greeks, Bulgarians and those who identify themselves with and promote the tradition of Martsishor,” stated Varvara Buzila.
The organizers called on the people to bring the martsishors they wore to the museum at the end of March so that these are tied to tree branches in the Botanical Garden.
The tradition of giving martsishors as a present on March 1 is typical of the Romanians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Greeks and a part of the Croatians and Hungarians. The old martsishor is the one formed of Red and White strings. In the past, this badge was worn on the neck, legs or hands to prevent the evil forces from entering and it became thus a talisman. At the end of March, when the first trees started to bloom, the people tied the martsishor to branches of these trees.
On December 6, 2017, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage voted in favor of inscribing the multinational fie “Cultural Practices Associated to the 1st of March” – joint case of Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and FYROM - on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
