19._FESTIVALS_AND_CELEBRATIONS

Fifty years later, many students protested another kind of oppression on November 17, 1989. These demonstrations marked the beginning of the „Velvet Revolution“and started the path towards democracy for the country.

January 1 New Year

This festive day celebrates the start of the New Year. It usually starts late, as people have been out celebrating late the night before. Many people prepare a big meal including pork for good luck and lentils for prosperity. Stay away from fish or poultry today. Those meals may force your luck to swim or fly away!

* SOME LOCAL FESTIVALS

CZECH BEER FESTIVAL PRAGUE

- in May

- offers thousands of litters of beer, in the manner of Munich’s Oktoberfest

- during the festival you can try more than 70 brands of Czech beer of top quality and the best delicacies

of Czech chefs, butchers and bakers that go with them.

COLOUR OF OSTRAVA

- music festival, which takes place in Ostrava Vítkovice

INTERNATIONAL HOLIDAYS

VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine’s Day started over two thousand years ago, as a winter festival, on 15 February. On that day, pagans asked their gods to give them good fruit and vegetables, and strong animals.

When the Christians came to Britain, they came with a story about a man called Saint Valentine. The story is that Valentine was a Christian who lived in the third century. The Roman Emperor at the time, Claudius II, was not a Christian. Claudius decided that his soldiers must not marry, because married soldiers do not make good soldiers.

Valentine worked for the church, and one day he helped a soldier to get married. The Emperor said that Valentine had to die because he did wrong. In prison Valentine started to love the daughter of a man who worked in the prison. The day he died, he sent a note to this girl, and at the end of the note, he said: ‘Your Valentine.’

He died on 14 February, so the date of the festival changed from 15 to 14 February, and the name changed to Saint Valentine’s Day. In the early nineteenth century, when the post office started in Britain, people started to send Valentine’s cards to the person they loved on 14 February. The cards had pictures of flowers and birds on, and words inside like:

Roses are red, my love,

Violets are blue,

Sugar is sweet, my love,

But not as sweet as you.

People still send each other Valentine’s cards, but often they do not write their names inside: they just write ‘Be my Valentine,’ or ‘From your Valentine’. It is a kind of game. Some children give their friends or teachers cards or chocolates. A man will perhaps give his girlfriend or wife red roses. A lot of people go out to restaurants for the evening and have dinner for two, with candles and soft music.

THE NEW YEAR

New Year’s Eve (=Silvestr) in on December, the last day before the New Year begin. In many places, people go to the parties, bars or restaurants with friends in the evening.

In New York, thousands of people go to Times Square, in London, they go to Trafalgar square. Just before midnight, people look at the clock and together they count the last ten seconds before the New Year begins.