Mărţişor

The tradition of exchanging amulets in white and red for health dates back thousands of years and is popular in several neighboring to Bulgaria countries. In all countries with this tradition, the arrival of spring is celebrated, and wishes for health, luck, and fertility are exchanged.

The Romanian spring celebration tradition of 'martisor', listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, is an integrant part of the country's identity-defining traditional culture, states the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE).

Deputies honoured on Wednesday in a plenary sitting the spring start celebration of 'Martisor', as an element of the world heritage.

The first day of the month of March is the festival of the martisor. The martisor is a symbolical calendar, represented by a two-colour piece of string, which gathers the days, weeks and months of the year in two seasons, winter and summer, and is given as a gift on March 1, the day of Dochia, the millennia-old beginning of the agrarian year.