My experience with Martisor

I’ll start with what I remember from my days as a pupil. When I was in primary and secondary school my
mother bought a bunch of Martisoare and told me to give them to all the teachers. My favourite teacher
or the class head teacher usually got the best Martisor, meaning the most expensive one or at least the
one that looked like it cost a lot of money. I didn’t care that much about giving Martisoare to my
teachers, I cared about how many I got from my classmates, especially from the boys. Though, in
hindsight, the boys had to give Martisoare to all the girls in the class, their mothers sent them with a bag
of them. I never liked the Martisoare that my mother bought because she usually got the cheapest ones.
I used to envy my classmates who had better looking ones. I have no recollection of a Martisor that I
really liked.

In high school, giving Martisoare starts to become uncool or too old school, so not a lot of people do it.

People say “Primavara frumoasa!” when they give a Martisor, which means “Beautiful spring!” When
you receive one, you just say thank you. People still exchange them nowadays. As a teacher, I receive
quite a lot of them. (see picture) Most of my students give me a Martisor, though I do notice some of
the older teachers or the less popular ones don’t receive that many. Obviously, I can’t wear all of them, I
give most of them to my grandmother, who gives them to children and women from her village. I keep a
few that I like and give a lot of them to my friends. It’s one of the few Romanian traditions that have
stuck around, but very few of the children know of the origin or history of it. On occasion, there will be
the odd student that actually made the Martisor at home with their mother. Others give other gifts with
a Martisor attached to it: a box of chocolates, a little perfume, homemade soap, flowers etc.