I can tell that the vast majority of the people were religious, but fear filled their soul with anxiety. As a rule, the first day of Easter, one used to organize some activity, especially in the evening of the Resurrection, so that the young people wouldn?t go to church. The next day we came to work and took a better look to see who we could say the traditional ? Christ has risen!? to. We passed by some people, ignoring them, and the fact that you did not greet them gave you the feeling of punishing them in a way.

Each had red eggs, Easter cake, and sponge cake, carefully hidden.  We knocked the eggs under the desks, gathered the shells, packed them and threw them at home. It was incautious to let the red shells lie in the paper garbage. Some who were more cautious came with already shelled eggs. (75)

On Mondays, in the paper baskets of every institution, one could find painted eggshells and sponge cake crumbs. Many used to say; ? Christ has risen!? Most of the time they received the well-known answer. But sometimes I heard adaptations, for instance: ? Happy birthday, comrade!? or silence. (87)

In 87 on Sunday, the first day of Easter, we did ? voluntary work?. We worked in a research institute (INCERC) and they took us all on Easter Sunday to clean the pavements. We swept under the eyes of the people living in the blocks, who had got out to watch in the balconies. (G. S., 67)

On Easter we went, like today, to Sf. Vasile church, across the Enescu Museum. The priest was very old. He never once prayed for the ? leaders of the Socialist republic of Romania?. We all understood this. We exchanged quick looks; we loved this priest. (7)

Getting supplies for Easter was an entire story. Besides going to church for the Resurrection service, everybody obeyed the eating practices of Easter. To find the necessary things had become a serious adventure, when you had on all accounts to succeed. In the last few years it had become forbidden to slaughter lambs. The queues in the night at the butchers? were meaningless. The men used to go by car to the fields around Bucharest where there were shepherds from all over the country. They slaughtered the lamb under your very eyes, flaying it; you put it in the car and drove away quickly. The militiamen probably needed lambs as well, because they didn?t intervene too often. The yeast for the sponge cake appeared at the last moment: a neighbor had more or ? had been to the market? or somebody had received a package from abroad (we did not know how it worked then: it was a fine powder, totally different from the soap like material of the verified native yeast). The flour was stored long before: the best flour, which had to be properly dried. Strangely enough, egg paint was easy to find: you could see it in all the shops.