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What is LIGO day in Latvia?
Jāņi ([jɑːɲi]) is an annual Latvian festival. Celebrating the summer solstice. Although astronomically the solstice falls on 21 or 22 June, the public holidays—Līgo Day and Jāņi Day—are on 23 and 24 June. The day before Jāņi is known as Līgosvētki, Līgovakars or simply Līgo.
Why do Latvians celebrate Jani?
Jani is an annual celebration in Latvia that takes place on June 24. It commemorates the summer solstice. It is a day that celebrates renewal, fertility, and hope of good luck, based on ancient folk traditions.
How do you celebrate Jani?
#1 Eat, drink and be merry Līgo and Jāņi is ideally celebrated in nature, making garlands of oak leaves or wild flowers, going to the sauna, drinking beer and devouring copious amounts of caraway cheese – best if homemade.
How do Latvians celebrate summer solstice?
Jāņi (summer solstice) Latvians sing, dance, eat and are merry during Jāņi. Cheese with caraway seeds, meat patties and beer are a must for every table. People light bonfires, jump over them and celebrate until the sunrise.
How do Latvians celebrate the Midsummer?
The chief activities include drinking beer by the bonfire; grilling meat; eating the traditional Midsummer cheese (with lots of caraway seeds) and singing and dancing to seasonally-specific folk songs in the open air.
What is Midsummer Day in Latvia?
23rd June
The Latvian midsummer celebration is called either “Līgo” or “Jāņi“. Technically, Līgo refers to the midsummer night (the 23rd June) whereas Jāņi is the following day (the 24th June). The former name reminds of the pagan solstice traditions that are very much alive today.
What is traditional Latvian food?
Cold soup (aukstā zupa), fish soup (zivju zupa), sorrel soup (skābeņu zupa) and mushroom soup (sēņu zupa) are also consumed by Latvians. A traditional Latvian dessert is rye bread soup (maizes zupa) made from rye bread, whipped cream, dried fruit and cranberries.
Is summer solstice magical?
Midsummer folklore dictates that the summer solstice is a liminal, magical time where spirits and fairies are able to cross more easily into the human world. It’s a time to expect the unexpected and allow yourself to believe that wishes really can come true because there’s magic in the air…
Why is the summer solstice so important?
June 21th, 2022 marks the longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere — and it also marks the official beginning of summer. That day is one of the most celebrated days around the world, and it’s most commonly known as the summer solstice.
What is Latvian famous for?
What is Latvia famous for? This small but significant Baltic state squeezes Art Nouveau architecture, UNESCO World Heritage, natural landscapes and sticky black balsam into its eastern European borders.
Did Latvians invent Pringles?
Pringles. Aleksandrs Liepa, a Latvian, was working under Proctor & Gamble, who at the time were in the process of creating the “perfect chip”. The patent was created by Liepa, who engineered the distinctive Pringles flavour that we know today.
Are Latvians Orthodox?
In modern Latvia, there are 350,000 Orthodox Church members. The services are in Church Slavonic and the members are predominantly Russian speakers. Ethnic Latvians are a minority among church members; there are parishes with services in Latvian in Riga, Ainaži, Kolka, Veclaicene and in other places.
What should you do on solstice?
Here are some customary ways to celebrate the solstice—you might notice that some resemble beloved Christmas traditions.
- Build a Yule Altar.
- Make an Evergreen Yule Wreath.
- Burn a Yule Log.
- Decorate a Yule Tree.
- Exchange Nature-Based Gifts.
- Give Back to Nature.
- Celebrate in Candlelight.
- Set up a Meditation Space.
What is Latvian LIGO?
Latvia’s most important national holiday is arguably not Christmas but the summer solstice celebrations of Ligo (pronounced “leegwa”) – a pagan tradition when Latvians celebrate the shortest night by staying up to greet the rising sun. As the sun slowly sets about an hour and a half before midnight, it peeks out briefly from behind the clouds.
How do you Celebrate LIGO in Latvia?
Women and girls wear a crown of flowers on their heads, while men wear a crown of oak leaves. In many places of Latvia, Ligo is celebrated according to ethnic traditions, singing farewell folk songs to the sun, as it sinks behind the horizon, and welcoming it at dawn.
What does LIGO stand for?
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory ( LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool.
What happened to LIGO after 2010?
After 2010, LIGO went offline for several years for a major upgrade, installing the new Advanced LIGO detectors in the LIGO Observatory infrastructures.