Gregorjevo is a holiday celebrated on March 12, the feast of Saint Gregory, Pope and teacher in the Church.
The custom has its roots in pre-Christian times, but people believed that it represented the arrival of spring, because according to the old calendar it was celebrated on the first day of spring, when the light part of the day becomes longer. At that time, shoemakers, blacksmiths and other craftsmen, especially in places in Gorenjska, stopped working under artificial light, so they lowered wooden planks into the rivers on which they burned resin, which symbolically meant that they were saying goodbye to the artificial light, under which they had to work all winter, and that work under natural light would begin.
According to folk tradition, on this day 'birds get married', so the holiday is also associated with those who are in love. In Bela Krajina, they knew the so-called chirping of birds, so the children believed that the birds not only get married, but that they leave the remains of the wedding celebration in the bushes and next to the trees, so the parents started placing various treats in nature, which the children asked for, thinking that it was left over from the wedding of the birds. It used to be believed that on this day girls should look to the sky, because the first bird a girl saw on that day announced what kind of husband she would get. Some other customs are also characteristic of Gregorjevo. In Prekmurje and Porabje, children sang carols, that is, they went from house to house and asked for gifts. These processions were modeled after the Hungarians and were preserved in some places until the last quarter of the last century.
In recent times, Gregorjevo has become an increasingly popular tourist attraction, but still mostly in Gorenjska, in places along the rivers. Slovenian teachers have transferred this custom abroad, where Slovenians or descendants of Slovenians live, so boats, called Gregorian boats, are launched by children who attend additional classes in the Slovenian language in various countries of the world.
That's why on Sunday, March 23, 2025, at 5:30 p.m., some members of the Triglav Association, older students of Slovenian language classes, and especially younger students, gathered by the Vrbas River, whose task was to make boats - Gregorian boats - at home from environmentally friendly materials. Students brought imaginative boats, made with full imagination and children's creativity, equipped with lights. When the sun began to set, we turned on the lights, each child raised their gregorček and proudly handed it to the president of the Association, Mladen Lunić, who, equipped with high rubber boots, carried each boat with a light on to the middle of the Vrbas river and let it down the water. We gathered to witness the beautiful sight of colorful boats being carried back and forth by the river...
A nice custom has also prevailed in these places where Slovenians and their descendants live, so we are already looking forward to next spring, when we will again make and release Gregorian boats down the Vrbas river, calling for spring, which is especially beautiful in Banja Luka.
Metoda Perger
