ლიფაანალი Lipaanali

Lipaanali festival is celebrated in Svaneti one day before Epiphany, on January 18th. During this festival souls of ancestors or “didebuli“ (the majestic ones) are invited from the western entrance of a local church all the way to each family’s home, where they stay till the next morning. Every family carefully prepares for this ritual. The day the souls are invited, “adgom“, is spent cleaning and scrubbing the house. As they say in Svaneti, - “the spirits will not enter the house during adgom, unless all bits of fat are cleaned.“ The Georgian Orthodox Church assigns its heaviest fasting to this day, while Svans developed a folk ritual around it. The head of the family puts several kveri (small, round bread with a filling, “lemzir“ in Svanian) and zedashe (best quality wine used for religious rituals) on a wooden tray, goes to the western entrance of a local church and asks the Lord to let his ancestors out of heaven. After this, he returns back home, all the