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Friday 4 December 2015

Saint Barbara's Day in Upper Silesia


The 4th of December is a special day for Polish miners - it’s Barbórka (pronounce: Barboorkah) - name's day of their patron, St. Barbara.

Polish miners are probably one of the few professions that still  strongly cultivate traditions. Today they don’t go underground to work. Instead they organise marches and huge celebrations called beer halls 

On Barbórka and other important days, like weddings, funerals, etc. miners wear a special uniforms consisting of a black suit, a hat with a plume and a small sword. The colour of plum depends on rank: black is for miners, white - mining engineers, green - chief director, red - member of orchestra, red and white for orchestra conductor.
Mines symbol of my region.


Have a nice Saturday!!

8 comments:

  1. Always interesting to view some of your traditions in Poland.Thanks, and have a special weekend, Gosia.

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  2. Thanks Gosia. This is really interesting! Especially since I am just now learning about Saint Barbara from my favorite (American) Russian Orthodox nun, Dr. Barbara Larin (aka Sister Vassa). You can see her short video about the saint (Eastern European language subtitles are an option) on YouTube:
    https://youtu.be/Rrr8_f_iy0U

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    1. Dina thanks a lot for sharing. It was definitely interesting

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  3. I've never heard of miners dressing up like that. We need photos.

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  4. That's very interesting regarding the miners. What are their costumes like?

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    1. Margaret I have wriiten about in the next post

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  5. Very interesting! Never knew Poland is has somea lot of rich traditions like this. Thanks for always sharing.

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