Thousands of women all over Turkey donned colorful skirts, gaudily ornamented headbands or any accessory resembling traditional Roma costumes and joined the Roma in mostly impoverished parts of their towns to celebrate Hidirellez, the festival of spring, on May 5-6.

Turkey, along with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, is working on including Hidirellez in UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage of the world. A promotional video prepared for this purpose reflects the various theories about the origin of this spring festival, celebrated approximately 40 days after the spring equinox. Some of these theories suggest that Hidirellez belongs to Mesopotamian and Anatolian cultures, and other theories say they belong to pre-Islamic Central Asian Turkish culture and beliefs. Roma people in the Balkans celebrate it as Ederlezi. In Serbia, Bulgaria and other parts of the Balkans where there was an Ottoman influence, it is called Durdevdan.

The Anatolian name of Hidirellez is derived from the names of the two prophets — Al-Khdir (Hidir or Hizir) and Elijah (Ilyas) — and their meeting on earth to bring prosperity and abundance. One widespread belief suggests that Hidir is a prophet who has attained immortality by drinking the water of life (ab-i hayat) and wanders around among people from time to time, especially in the spring, and helps people in difficulty and distributes prosperity and health. “He reached me in times of trouble, just like Hizir,” goes the Turkish proverb, referring to the efficiency and speed of help required.

For many Turks, however, Hidirellez is simply and politically incorrectly identified as the time of the “gypsies” — celebrated with loud Roma music, dancing in the streets or belly-dancing in the small squares, jumping over a fire, throwing wishes scribbled on a piece of paper into the sea or hanging them on a rose tree.