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Casting a good luck charm for the New Year is an ancient tradition in various parts of Europe and has been a fun custom in the Baltics for a couple of centuries or more. Melted tin or wax is poured into a bucket of cold water during New Year’s Eve, and the resulting charm is interpreted to predict how the New Year will turn out.
The team of Luminor Bank has followed the old New Year’s Eve tradition of casting a good luck charm to see in the new year, spread good wishes, and support organisations helping with Covid-19 relief.
Luminor cast a fortune charm for the Baltics using over 60 kilograms of metal to represent the population of more than 6 million in the Baltic states. Environmentally safe tin was used to make sure that the resulting charm is also safe and sustainable, and specialists from the Riga Stradins University Institute for Environmental Health and Occupational Safety and the University of Latvia Institute of Solid-State Physics joined in the project.
Luminor Head of Marketing Oskars Laksevics says that the past year has been unexpected in various ways, but that this has also helped people see many things in a new light.
Banks are known for making economic forecasts, so we decided to do something different this time and forecast some luck as well with our lucky charm. And not just any charm, but the biggest good luck charm ever. As the Baltic people have already proved, small countries can do big things together,
he explained.
Pouring a charm to test your luck at the turn of the year is an old custom that is still followed in this region for fun on New Year’s Eve.
Luminor is inviting everyone to join in and to see the charm that is cast at www.biggestluck.com, and to guess their fortune for the New Year and share their best wishes with their friends and family.
See the video of how the charm was poured:
Mr Laksevics explained that the initiative will not only spread good wishes for the New Year, but more importantly will support organisations in the Baltics helping to relieve the impact of Covid-19.
With each share on the social media, Luminor will donate 10 cents to support Covid-19 relief organisations.
In Estonia, the money will be donated to the West-Tallinn Central Hospital to help it procure a ventilator for patients who cannot breathe on their own.
In Latvia, the project will support the Poga Centre, which provides rehabilitation for disabled children, but is currently working partly due to the restrictions. The donation will be used to purchase innovative hi-tech suits that allow rehabilitation programmes to be followed at home.
In Lithuania, the donation will go to the Order of Malta to help in providing homecare services to old, disabled or sick people who are isolated in their homes because of quarantine.
The good luck charm that is cast will be exhibited in Riga city centre until 10 January. After that it will be recycled, and the proceeds from it will also be added to the donations.
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