Nikola is a boy’s name – the stress is on the ‘o’ – so this is St. Nicholas’s Day. It takes place on 6th December and is one of the big name days where gifts are given to the namee, families gather together for a meal, and there’s a specific type of food. Because St. Nikola is the patron saint of fishermen, the food in this instance is fish; usually carp. Walk through any residential district in the early evening of St. Nikola’s Day and the stench of cooking carp seeps from windows and hangs over the street like a toxic mist.
