Easter in Georgia 2024: How to Celebrate Like a Local

Easter in Georgia is the most important celebration of the year. Like any other country, Georgia has its unique Easter traditions and customs. If your trip coincides with the holiday, here is all you need to know about celebrating Easter in Georgia like a local.

Easter is a family celebration where everyone gets together, spends these days together, and pays respect to their dead relatives by going to the graveyards. Therefore, many travel to their native regions to be with their families, so Easter in Tbilisi feels deserted and empty. 

But before I get to the traditions, I need to provide some essential information so you better understand the holidays. And if you think you’ll be in Georgia for these days, I recommend also seeing Georgia’s oldest ball game – Lelo Burti – held on Easter Sunday only in the Guria region.

What is the religion in Georgia country? 

Georgia is an Orthodox Christian country that follows a Julian calendar for its religious celebrations compared to Catholic Christians. Therefore, every religious holiday in Eastern Orthodox countries falls on different dates, including Easter. 

What is Orthodox Easter? 

Similar to Catholic Easter, believers celebrate the resurrection of Jesus in Orthodox Easter. However, the church rituals and traditions slightly differ.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the preparations for Easter start with Great Lent – 40 days of fasting and reflection, which begins on Clean Monday and ends on Lazarus Saturday. 

Clean Monday refers to quitting non-fasting foods and getting rid of sinful behaviors. Lazarus Saturday falls eight days before Easter Sunday, signifies the end of Great Lent. However, the fasting continues into Holy Week.

Is Easter always in April? 

Easter in Georgia has moveable dates as it follows the Julian Calendar and falls anywhere from April 4 to May 8.

The exact date is typically calculated according to the Spring Equinox (when day and night are equal). Easter in Georgia is the next Sunday following the full moon after the equinox. 

Easter in Georgia is always a public holiday where most venues are closed.

Essential dates for Easter in Georgia 2024 

• April 7 – Annunciation
• April 28 – Bzoba or Palm Sunday
• May 2 – Maundy Thursday
• May 3 – Orthodox Good Friday, a.k.a Red Friday
• May 4 – Orthodox Holy Saturday
• May 5 – Orthodox Holy Sunday
• May 6 – Orthodox Good Monday

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Prior preparations for Easter in Georgia 

According to the customs and traditions, there are a few things to do before Easter in Georgia.

Fast before Easter

Those who are religious start fasting 40 days before Easter. They don’t eat dairy, meat, eggs, or fish for almost two months. Although, there are a lot of products catering to those who fast. Samarkhvo is a Georgian word meaning “for fasting” and refers to products that don’t have animal ingredients. 

Therefore, there are Samarkhvo cakes, ice creams, chocolates, and mayonnaise, to name a few. Honestly, I find this absurd, but oh, well, that’s Georgia 🙂 

On the other hand, Samarkhvo products are great for vegetarians and vegans, but not all of them might cater to your dietary lifestyle, so always check the ingredients.

Grow Easter grass

Two to three weeks before Easter Sunday, Georgians grow Easter grass, which symbolizes the new life Jesus gave us with His resurrection. We use it as part of the decorations. 

Wet cotton pads in water, put them on a plate, sprinkle a handful of wheat seeds on those wet pads, and place the plate near the window to get direct sunlight. It needs anywhere from one week to three weeks to grow.

Get a blessed Box branch

The Georgian Orthodox Church celebrates Bzoba or Palm Sunday one week before Easter Sunday. Bza is a Georgian word for Box shrub, and similar to Easter, Bzoba has a moveable date. It also marks the first day of Holy Week. 

One family member goes to a church and brings blessed Box branches back home on this day. 

The custom dates back to when people greeted Christ as he entered Jerusalem by scattering palm tree branches before him. Over time, procuring palm branches in different climate countries got complicated, and it was substituted by native trees such as Box, Willow, Yew, and Olive. 

Dye eggs in red

Legend has it that when St. Mary Magdalene congratulated the Roman Emperor Tiberius on Christ’s resurrection, she gifted him an egg. His response to the news was that he’d rather believe this egg to become red than a man coming back from the dead. Instantly, the egg turned red, giving Christians a tradition of dyeing eggs red ever since. 

Georgians dye chicken eggs in red color on Red Friday or Good Friday. It’s believed that red eggs symbolize the blood of Christ, his rebirth, and eternal life.

According to tradition, you need to dye eggs before sunset. We don’t use food coloring for eggs; instead, we use natural methods. Red onion peels and madder roots are the most common ingredients for coloring eggs in red. 

Some families use one or another; some do a combination of both. And every family has its recipe for getting blood-red colored eggs. 

The best is to buy madder roots instead of the powder and crush it on your own. However, some roots or onion peels might be of low quality and may result in a different shade of red. Sometimes you might even get something more brownish than red, so quality matters.

How my family dyes eggs in red

Here is a method we use in my family to dye chicken eggs; we almost always have good, dark red eggs. 

We crush madder roots, soak them in water on Thursday, and leave them overnight. If we have good quality red onion peels, we also include them with crushed roots. 

We boil the water with roots and onions on the morning of Red Friday and let it cool down completely. Then we put eggs inside. The water should cover the eggs completely. We put salt and a bit of vinegar and cook it again to color and boil the eggs. 

When done, we polish these eggs with oil-infused cotton for a sparkle and vibrant red color.

Buy Georgian Easter cake

As the Easter holiday approaches, the “madness” of Georgian Easter cake starts. Georgians absolutely adore their Easter cake. Some even buy it as soon as it hits the shelves of various shops and supermarkets weeks before. 

During these days, my Facebook feed is also crowded with various posts asking for recommendations on which company has the best Georgian Easter cake that year. 

Paska is an Eastern European Easter bread traditionally baked in Eastern Orthodox Christian countries for these festivities, such as Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, and parts of Bulgaria, to name a few. 

Georgian Easter bread is also called Paska but think of it as a sweet pastry, something like a butter cake rather than bread. 

However, before Paska became popular in Georgia during the Soviet times, we baked Easter Kada – the sweet bread or pastry with a sweet filling made of flour, butter, and sugar. 

The origin of the Paska’s name can be traced back to Slavic languages. In Ukrainian, Easter is called Velýkden’, and páska refers to the Easter bread. In Russian, Easter is páskha, and the Easter bread is kulích. The word also has a connection with the Ancient Greek word páska (πάσκα), derived from Orthodox believers in the Byzantine Empire and the Jewish holiday of Pesach. 

Paska is round and tall and has various decorations on top of it. It can be different in size and height. And depending on the country, the insides can also be different. 

Georgian Easter cake usually has raisins inside, while the top is either sprinkled with powdered sugar or decorated with egg white icing. More modern versions of Paska in Georgia can also have succades or dried fruits. Some Paskas are also made from cottage cheese.

Customs during Easter in Georgia

When the Holy Week starts, locals have another set of customs during the Easter festivities.

Attend a church ceremony

The most important part of Easter in Georgia (and elsewhere) is the mysterious arrival of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem one day before Easter Sunday. 

Religious locals attend the church on Saturday evening to participate in the Easter mass called Litonioba. They listen to the Catholicos-Patriarch and pray while waiting for the delegation to bring the Holy Fire from Jerusalem. The whole process lasts all night. 

Even though every small church in the neighborhood has a mass, Holy Trinity Cathedral is the primary church to experience Litonioba. 

Say Happy Easter in Georgian

On Easter Sunday, Georgians don’t say “Hello” to each other; instead, we congratulate everyone by saying an equivalent of Happy Easter. 

If someone says: “Qriste Aghsdga” – Christ has risen! 

The response is: “Cheshmaritad Aghsdga! – He has risen indeed!

Crack the eggs

There is no Easter egg hunt in Georgia. Instead, we crack those red-colored eggs in the morning. It’s a custom to start Easter Sunday by egg-cracking in Georgia. 

First, we choose the strongest egg from the batch by slightly rapping it on our teeth. The clearer the sound, the stronger the egg might be. 

Each family member chooses their egg and starts cracking by hitting both sides of the egg on each other. 

The pointy part of an egg is called Tavi, or Head, and the other Traki, or the Butt. Whose egg won’t crack gets the broken ones. 

As a kid, we would take our strongest eggs at school following the Easter holidays and compete whose egg was the hardest and most robust. 

Prepare Georgian Easter food

On Easter Sunday, Georgians make a special meal – Chakapuli. It’s a lamb meat stew with green plum (tkemali) and tarragon. It’s a must-have Georgian Easter food; however, as many Georgians outgrew eating lamb, many families substituted it with veal, beef, or chicken. 

Besides these three main ingredients, the recipe also calls for onions, dry white wine, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs such as coriander and parsley. 

A vegetarian version is made from mushrooms and is as good as a meat stew.

Apart from Chakapuli, boiled ham is another traditional Georgian Easter food. As a drink, it’s a tradition to have red wine at Easter dinner. 

Pay respect to the dead

On Good Monday, Georgians visit graveyards to pay respect to the dead. Traffic on this day is insane, so many prefer to do that on Sunday. 

Going to the graveyards of relatives has a sacred meaning for many. During Soviet rule, churches all across the country were closed. Therefore, locals started to go to the graveyards to pray for their deceased relatives. They would light up a candle and sit for a while. 

Since Easter marks the resurrection of Christ and symbolizes eternal life, Georgians celebrate it with the whole family, living or dead. Even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Georgians kept the tradition of going to the graveyards to reunite with their relatives and let them know that Christ has resurrected. That’s why you won’t see many sad faces at cemeteries during Easter. 

Today, we bring red eggs, Paska, and a small bottle of wine to the cemetery. It is customary to toast in respect of the dead relatives, and since you can’t drink wine on an empty stomach, there are snacks to nibble on. 

After drinking wine, we pour a small portion of it on the grave. We call it “knocking over a goblet.” By such action, we believe that our deceased relatives are not alone in the afterlife and hope that our family members will also come to visit our graves when the time comes. 

Sadly, some people take this tradition to a whole new level and make an excuse for heavy drinking that looks like a party rather than a simple religious or customary gesture.

Spread the word!