REGIONAL UNIT OF FLORINA: TRADITION AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
Cultural events and performances
In Florina, culture, letters and the arts are systematically cultivated. Various artistic events are organised by the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia, which is based in the city. Associations such as the Florina Art Centre, the Florina Culture Club and the Aristotle Cultural Association stimulate local intellectual life.
. The Lykeion ton Ellinidon (Lyceum Club of Greek Women) of Florina participates in music and dance events and revives customs such as the Lazarines on Lazarus Saturday (the feast before Palm Sunday), and the Klidonas on St John’s Day (24 June). The Cultural Summer and Prespeia festivals include dance performances, musical evenings, plays and exhibitions.
Florina’s biggest festivity, attracting throngs of visitors, is the Christmas Fires. At midnight on 23 December, bonfires are lit in each neighbourhood, with the largest one in Heroon Square alongside the River Sakoulevas. People dance around the bonfires to the music of local bands and the Municipal Philharmonic Orchestra. The main instruments are percussion and brass – clarinet, trumpet and trombone – in the local musical idiom. Participants are offered sweet treats and bean soup, washed down with glasses of the local Xinomavro red wine, the traditional production of which has been inscribed on the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Similar bonfires are lit in Amyntaio on 3 December, the feast of St Barbara.
In the villages of Florina, festivals are held, mainly in the summer, on the feast-day of the saint to whom the church of each village is dedicated. Music and dancing accompany the celebration of local products, like the Strawberry Festival in Atrapos. Finally, there are the famous “Rakokazana of the villages of Florina”, the traditional distillation of tsipouro (grape marc spirit) from November to January, where the process of distillation in copper stills (rakokazana) is accompanied by dancing and local dishes.
