My memories from the 20th Century

Till the 90s of 20^th Century I remember the deep feeling of “The Night of St. John and its bonfires” as something sacred, full of joy, surprise, legends, and the strange electricity of midsummer. The fields and village edges were alive with fireflies—those tiny drifting lights that felt like wandering souls—and the loud buzzing of June bugs, those big brown beetles that always managed to tangle themselves in girls’ hair, followed by screams, laughter, and the kind of excitement only childhood summers can hold.

Around the bonfires people whispered old stories: treasures hidden deep in the woods that could be found only on this night, herbs gaining miraculous power at midnight, and the fern flower that glowed for a single heartbeat to reveal destiny. Some swore they once saw strange lights moving between the trees, or heard voices carried by the warm wind. Others remembered the old belief that on St. John’s Night the boundary between worlds thinned, and the forest watched you back.

Those memories still feel enchanted—half real, half myth—like a time when nature itself breathed differently, and every spark from the bonfire carried a promise of something mysterious just beyond the edge of sight.