Officially for the third time, and unofficially for the fourth time, Tsarina borough organizes the reception of the Orthodox New Year and celebrates Tsarina Day…

Every year the organization is improved, so last year we had the first report from this celebration. This time the weather was much colder, the temperature was below zero with a bit of snow, but already from the morning the preparations and the exhibition of home-made delicacies attracted rare passers-by…

Those who had to prepare the celebration, warmed themselves by the fire on which the roast was turned, and mulled wine and brandy.

As evening fell, so did the temperature, but the mood rose. Partly because of the preparations for the New Year's celebration, and partly because of the ‘fuel’ prepared for personal heating during this long Winter night…

Props for the celebration attracted the attention of the youngest, and the planned program looked like this:

January 13th, 2024
● Performance of children’s KUDs
● Procession to the Church of St. Luke in Carina – the Knights fights
● Service for visitors (roast bull hamburgers, mulled wine and brandy)
● Father Christmas distributes gifts to the youngest fellow citizens
● Exhibition of Smederevo wineries – performance of Smederevo fiddlers – concert of Milica Miljković band
● Concert of the band ‘1001 nights’ (Gotsi Band)
● New Year’s Eve and fireworks

The attraction of the day was definitely a selfie with a real knight!

And here we have a couple of modern knights in a festive mood:

Whoa, look who else is here! It’s Mila, mommy’s little helper, from the posts of our @ladysnowhite, with her grandma Bojana!

The crowd was naturally the biggest around the spits. Not only was the smell appealing, but it was also much warmer. In our country, global warming has completely failed… 😉

The roasting masters had their hands full cutting and handing out the goodies…

Despite the long wait in the cold, there were no problems with discipline – among other things, due to the competent stewards.

And while the elders were waiting for the music program to begin, the youth keep warm by playing street soccer.

There are only a few things that can prevent me from photographing such events. Most often, I involuntarily have to stop when the battery is empty, or the memory card is full. This time, I had to cancel further photographing of the Milica Miljković's band because of stiff and unusable – frozen fingers!

And I have to apologize for the delay of this report. It was planned much earlier. The luckiest among you will notice one truth: the older you get, the less things go as planned 😁

I wish you that in the New Year all your plans come true just as you imagined them!

Happy New Orthodox 2024 and see you soon!

All the photos in this challenge are taken with the Fujifilm X-T20 and Fujinon XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4 R LM OIS lens.

This post is made as a contribution to a photo challenge done in collaboration of two of our members: @tattoodjay hosts a competition called “Wednesday Walk” and @elizacheng’s contest called “Make me Smile”… But it was late (my fault) for both competitions! Still, it will serve as a good promotion for next Wednesday. Good luck!