Hidrellez Festival

Instead of celebrating Liberation Day on the 5th of May in Holland, we celebrated Hidrellez, the first day of the early summer in Istanbul. It’s a festivity that has been celebrated for many centuries in the Levant and even Mesopotamia. It has been celebrated under various different names, one of them is also the Day of Hızır. Hızır was a prophet who especially during this time of the year would help people in harsh times and would provide them health and prosperity. Besides this it is also believed that all wishes you make on Hidrellez will come true. For this reason there were traditional wish trees all around the festival site. Writing wishes on a piece of paper or a cloth is also an ancient Anatolian tradition which has been practiced by both the Muslim and the Christian population of Anatolia. It was very nice to see this custom being practiced at the Hidrellez festival. And of course for the festival the wish trees were decorated in bright and happy colors.
For us the Hidrellez was about enjoying the wonderful Gypsy music and dance. We were there from the beginning onwards while it was still possible to move around and have an overview of the festival. But when the evening fell it got more crowed and more crowded. On Facebook alone this event was supposed to have almost 16.000 guests!