👉 On the night of June 24, during the Summer Solstice, Estonia will "blaze" with bonfires, celebrating Jaanipäev — St. John's Day.

☀️Midsummer, Jaanipäev, Ivan Kupala Day – in Estonia (as well as in Lithuania, by the way), this day is celebrated with even greater enthusiasm than Christmas.
Ivan Kupala Day is tied to the solstice and, being "on the same axis as Christmas," divides the year into two halves. Until then, the length of the day increases, after which it decreases.
The sun is at its highest point in the sky, making this the longest day and shortest night of the year. One of the four main holidays of the solar calendar, along with Christmas – as the longest night of the year, after which the Sun seems to be reborn, increasing daylight each day.

Celebrations of similar solstice-related holidays are known among many other peoples: Serbs, Slovenes, Czechs, Bulgarians, Russians, Germans, Austrians, and English 🌎.
☘️Bonfires, wreaths, the fern flower, and magic – in various cultures, these are important attributes of this holiday.

💧☘️🔥In Ukraine, it is believed that on the night of Ivan Kupala, water, grass, and fire are filled with magical powers. The elements cleanse from sins and heal diseases, while plants help in divination and healing. Girls need to weave wreaths from flowers and grasses. During the day, they wear them, and in the evening, they place a candle in them and set them afloat on the water.
The fate was determined by the behavior of the wreath: if it sinks, the girl who set it afloat will not marry. If the wreath floats well and the candle burns brightly, the girl will become a wife. If the wreath spins in place, she will remain a maiden, and if it sinks, she will not marry at all. If the wreath floats far and touches a shore, the girl will marry there 👰.

In Estonia, on this day, girls wash their faces with spring water, weave wreaths (in southern Estonia, they even decorate cows with them 🙃). It is believed that if a girl sleeps in a wreath on Jaan's night, she will see her future husband in a dream.

☘️Both in Ukraine and Estonia, there is a belief about the fern flower, which supposedly appears on Kupala night. According to legends, the fern blooms only for a short moment on the shortest night before Ivan Kupala Day. Obtaining this flower is quite difficult, as it is guarded by evil spirits. Only a young man, often single or the only son in the family, can find it.

The motifs of the fern flower and summer night often appear in romantic poetry and music. In Estonian traditions, finding the fern flower had to be done alone, and the one who found it would be granted happiness, wealth, understanding the language of all animals, birds, and people, and other special skills.

🔥But the main attribute of the holiday is, of course, the bonfire. Estonians believe that fire has a cleansing power. With the fire, all bad and negative things go away. The bonfire is made as large and high as possible so that the fire is symbolically closer to the sun, which it can greet in the morning.

🍻By the evening of June 23rd, celebrants in Estonia gather around the bonfire: they drink beer, eat meat, sing national songs (Estonians love to sing, being a very musical nation), dance, swing on large wooden swings set up near the bonfire, play tug-of-war, form circles and jump over the fire. By the way, it is on Jaan's Day that Estonians can be seen in national costumes. The festivities last all night, ending with the sunrise.
Old-timers believe that if you stay awake until dawn on Jaan's Night and greet the sun, you will have a successful year 🤞.

In Ukraine, traditionally, boys light the bonfire on the riverbank. Then boys and girls, holding hands, jump over the fire in pairs. Before this, they may exchange wreaths. After jumping, the pair walks around the Kupala effigy.

Jaanipäev is celebrated in Estonia on a grand scale, with three days off and numerous events across the country – in every town, there will be concerts and mass celebrations 🔥.

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