A giant painted Easter egg from Croatia, which is a symbol of friendship, love and joy of Easter, will sit proudly in Munich, Germany during the Easter period…

The Tourist Board of Koprivnica and Križevci County in Croatia has traditionally organised a unique outdoor exhibition of large decorated Easter eggs called ‘Pisanica od srca’ (Easter egg from the heart) over the Easter period. The exhibition this year will be held on Zrinski Square in Koprivnica from 11 – 20 March 2016.

This year one of the impressive eggs will makes it way to Munich, where it will be placed during the Easter period. It will be the first time that one of the eggs has made it to Germany. Last year an egg was placed in Hungary. The ‘Pisanica was painted by naïve expression artists Stjepan Pongrac, Josip Gregurić, Đuro Jaković and Zlatko Štrfiček. Before the egg makes its way to Germany it will be exhibited also on Zrinski Square in Koprivnica.

The Tourist Board started the ‘Easter egg from the heart’ project in 2007 with the desire that large Easter eggs were sent all over Croatia and rest of the world as not only a recognizable note of everyday life and tradition of Podravina region, but also as a sign of friendship, love and joy of Easter.

The tradition of decorating Easter eggs dates back a very long time in Croatia. During Easter, eggs would be painted with bright colours, and would be given as gifts, especially to young children. Before paint became common, villagers would have to use whatever resources they had available around them to make the dyes and paints themselves. The most common colour for eggs was red, due to the abundance of red beets and other vegetables.

On Easter day, a traditional game is played in which at least two people choose eggs and hold them vertically while one person lightly taps the end of the other egg with their end, to see whose will crack. Anyone whose egg cracks must choose another and then tap the other person’s egg, and they continue until all the eggs have been used and cracked but the last one. Whoever holds the strongest egg in the end which has not been cracked, wins.