The ESBA Promo Championship in Liepaja happens to take place right in the midst of Latvia’s biggest summer celebration – Jāņi, also known as Līgo svētki (svētki = festival). It is a national holiday to mark the summer solstice celebrated on a large scale by almost everyone in Latvia and by people of Latvian origin abroad.
The organizers of the tournament warmly invite all participants to join the festivities on June 23 and celebrate Midsummer together at the Red Sun Buffet.
Traditional Latvian celebrations consist of mainly pagan elements – eating Jāņi cheese, drinking beer, baking “pīrāgi”, singing hundreds of Latvian folk songs dedicated to Jāņi, burning bonfires to keep light all through the night and jumping over it, wearing wreaths of flowers (for women) and oak leaves (for men) together with modern commercial products and ideas.
There are tens and hundreds of different beliefs and traditions all over Latvia on what should be done on that day for good harvest, for predicting the future, for attracting your future spouse and many more.
People decorate their houses and lands with birch or sometimes oak branches and flowers as well as leaves, especially fern. In rural areas livestock is also decorated. In modern days small oak branches with leaves are attached to the cars in Latvia during the festivity. Jāņi has been a strong aspect of Latvian culture throughout history, originating in pre-Christian Latvia as an ancient fertility cult.
