The atmosphere of meditation, burning candles, the sea of flowers and ... enormous traffic jams in the city – this is a brief description of one of the most reflective Polish feasts, All Saints' Day, when the Poles commemorate their dead.
 
All Saints' Day has been celebrated on November 1 for hundreds of years. However, this feast is not treated as a humorist festival of ghosts like the English Halloween but as a day of meditation and seriousness.
All Saints' Day stems primarily from the reverence for martyrs who gave their lives for the Christ. In the first ages of Christianity the feast was celebrated on May 1; only in the 8th century Pope Gregory IV ordered that the day of November 1 is to be commemorated to the memory not only of martyrs but also of all the saints of the Catholic Church.
The day after All Saints' Day – on November 2 – is celebrated as All Souls' Day; then we remember all the dead – not only those who were announced as saints by the pope. However, since it is November 1 that is a day off, on this day many people visit cemeteries in order to pray and light the candles.
Although the tradition of this feast is routed in Catholicism, it is celebrated by all Poles regardless of their world views or professed religion.
On All Saints' Day the most important element is the visit to the cemetery. People light the candles and bring flowers to the graves of their nearest and dearest. The most characteristic flower is chrysanthemum which is associated by Poles primarily with November 1. This flower species is rarely given on other occasions like name's days or birthdays.

All Saints' Day is also an occasion for the only visit to the home town in the whole year. That is why the Polish roads are very crowded around November 1. In Poznań the largest cemeteries are situated in the Miłostów district (at the exit towards Warsaw) and the Juników district (in the western part of the city at the end of ul. Grunwaldzka). If on this day we do not have to drive in Poznań, we had better not do it because we may get stuck in a gigantic traffic jam. Also the traffic organisation is changed: many streets are closed or changed into one-way streets. Additionally, the road police conducts the Znicz (ang. Candle) campaign. Practically everywhere you may meet police patrols especially sensitive to breaking traffic regulations. Police officers are supported in their work by soldiers who also may give us a ticket.
However, it is worth to leave your house on All Saints' Day and go for a walk to one of the Poznań cemeteries. They appear particularly beautiful after dark when they are lighten up by thousands of shimmering candles. What is also worth mentioning is that at the military cemetery at the Citadel there are graves of the Russian, English, French and American soldiers who dies in the First and Second World Wars.