This one's for the dead

Wildimages has a good post about yesterday's All Saints' Day with much better pictures. Go there at once. I have to quibble a bit about language though: Všech Svätých is actually in Czech. According to my mother in law people do say it here but if you wnt to be spisovne - linguistically correct - you are supposed to call it sviatok všetkých svätých. Very often people call it Dušičky, because all the candle lighting and grave cleaning is actually in honour of All Soul's Day (November 2), though that starts at sunset on November 1 in Catholic custom (so Halloween is actually stupid on October 31 in Slovakia because after sunset it already belongs to the saints - witches etc. would be better off doing their evil thing on the night of October 30).

We went out just after sunset because that is by far the most atmospheric time when the candles are glowing in the dark and the cemetary really looks like a city. As you can see from the picture, just about all of Zilina decided to do the same and it got a bit awkaward on the cemetary's narrow paths. While a lot of the country do try to race around the country and visit all their family graves, most people don't or can't and usually there is a big cross or other monument at the entrance to the cemetary where you can remember anyone. That explains the crowd and the sea of candles in the picture above.