“Kuchkhaoba” is a tradition in Samegrelo, which continues to these days and has a significant impact both for the ritual cycle of the New Year, and as an important habitual culture for ethnographic cultural and intangible heritage. On this day, all guests who come to the family should bring a fresh sprig of any green plant, which is considered a symbol of life and spring. As they say in Samegrelo, the nature, which falls asleep in autumn, gathers new strength starting from the "Kuchkha" celebration.

 

In the morning of “Kuchkha”, they would bake chicken pies, which they would decorate with chicken feathers, and say: “Che kotomi chelaia! Che munomirkhialee, shi antasi chqimi tis, aka medzobelishi tis!” (White hen, white hen! You laid a white egg for me, a hundred for me, only one for my neighbour).

 

They threw small balls of dough on the roof of the house since they believes it would bring rich harvest. And depending on the number of crumbs that would fall down, they would predict if how many chicken they would have.

 

Afterword, they would arrange these chicken pies on the platter with seeds of foxtail millet, sow the seeds around the house and repeat the same prayer to attract the chickens. When the first-foot man would enter the house, beatify the family to have large number of chickens, circle the house three times and croak like a rooster. The first-foot man had a handful of millet, and the children were chasing him and plucking like chickens. The first-foot man would dive a handful of millet into water three times and check it – if the millet was dry, they would predict a year with beneficial weather and if it was wet, then the year would suffer of bed weather.