LOCAL TRADITIONS

The people of the Karst are very much attached to their roots and traditions. Numerous customs and rituals have been preserved in karst villages, which clearly reflect the Slovene cultural identity of this territory. Traditional parties on Shrove Tuesday, singing Epiphany carols on 6 January, setting up maypoles for May Day (1 May) or lighting up bonfires on St John's Eve (23 June) are just some of the ethnographic events which the Kraševci faithfully organise to safeguard their cultural heritage of centuries past. It is interesting that these rituals significantly differ from one village to another.

Those visitors who would like to experience the karst region in a unique way and are interested in its ethnographic traditions, should visit the Karst Wedding (Nozze Carsiche). The event takes place on a biannual basis, in the last week of August, and takes the visitors back in time for a good 150 years. You will see a demonstration of how people of the Karst traditionally entered the matrimony in the second half of the 19th century.

If you would like to have some fun at a traditional Mardi Gras party, then head up Monte San Michele del Carso (Vrh svetega Mihaela) on Shrove Tuesday. The village will be taken over by Pepeljuharji (the Ashmen). These masked (originally unmarried) men run around with stockings that are filled with ash and attempt to smear everyone with ash. By doing so, they symbolically exorcise people of any evil which may reside in them.